The Sum of the Parts
by Energybeing
Summary: What happens when you cross the Key, a Ferula Gemina, and SG-1 traveling through the Stargate? Sequel to "Adjustment Phase".
1. Chapter 1

Author's note: this story begins during the Buffy season 5 episode "The Replacement", and takes place roughly during the same season of Stargate SG-1, neither of which are programs that I own, nor will I ever own. So don't sue me.

This is part of my series "Scoobies & Stargates", which you will need to have read in order for this to make any sense whatsoever.

~*~

Dawn had been feeling more than usually smothered lately. It was really getting on her nerves - after all, she was fourteen now, nearly the same age Buffy had been when she had been called, and she had already known about the supernatural world for years.

Of course, Dawn had understood why Buffy was smothering her. Dawn had been content to stay out of that world, before. When Dawn had first found out about it, she had found that Angel, the man her sister had been sort-of-dating, had turned into a mass-murdering psychopath intent on destroying the world. That kind of thing really puts an eleven year old girl off the idea of magic and monsters.

Then, when it turned out that the Mayor had been planning on turning into a giant snake and eat Sunnydale, Dawn had been more than happy to stay out of that one, given her fear of snakes, giant or otherwise. Besides, there wasn't a lot she could've done about it, so she and Joyce left town on graduation day.

Things began to change after that, though. Especially when Dawn had tagged along with the group and SG-1 (how cool was it that Willow was off exploring the galaxy and fighting aliens!?) to go and put an end to Caelus' nefarious scheme to open the Hellmouth. He'd chained Dawn up just like the rest of them, even knocked her out for talking too much.

It had really been driven home to her when Willow had told her about helping to destroy a giant spaceship (after getting over being possessed and then kissed back to life by Daniel) that she could actually make a difference. Of course, Dawn was way too young to join the SGC, but she could help with the magical stuff. But Buffy didn't understand that, she just wanted to keep Dawn out of it. Hence the smothering.

So, when Giles had called Buffy to tell her that he had been attacked by some kind of demon that had been looking for her, Dawn pestered her sister unmercifully until Buffy had a choice between tying Dawn up or letting her come with her. Given that Joyce would be furious to come home and find her youngest daughter tied up, Buffy had no choice but to let Dawn come along.

Of course, Buffy spent the journey to the Magic Box telling Dawn exactly what she could and couldn't do - which boiled down to "Stay still and do whatever I tell you".

Dawn snorted inwardly. Yeah, like that was going to happen.

~*~

Dawn wasn't really all that surprised that Giles had been attacked before the Magic Box had even opened. Giles got attacked and knocked out more than anyone she knew, and having seen the last owner of the shop, Mr Bogarty, sprawled dead on the floor - Dawn had seen way more than just a foot - she knew that the owners off the Magic Box had the highest mortality rate of any shop owner in Sunnydale, which was saying something. Giles and the Magic Box was a bad combination.

On the other hand, as Giles had said, he wasn't unconscious so it was a win for him.

It didn't take Giles all that long to find out who the demon that had attacked him had been. Toth, of the Tothric clan. Dawn absently wondered if he had a brother called Rick, but she didn't say it out loud. Although Xander would probably laugh at it - which was good - Buffy would probably think that Dawn was being silly and make one the other Scoobies take her home - which was bad.

As the other Scoobies loaded themselves with weapons, in order to hunt down Toth, which Giles' nose suggested was lurking in the junkyard, Dawn couldn't help but notice that she was conspicuously weapon-less. She supposed that she should be grateful that Buffy hadn't sent her away. Although that was probably because she had forgotten Dawn was there.

~*~

Upon reaching the junkyard, Dawn began to wish that she hadn't been quite so insistent on coming. It really stank. Really, really stank. Worse than using the bathroom after Buffy. Which Dawn had only ever done once and had sworn never to do so again. That was how bad it was.

But, if Dawn was going to make a difference, she should be able to put up with things like this. If Buffy wasn't stopped by dying, Dawn wasn't going to be stopped by a truly awful stench.

Or by Spike rummaging around the heaps, apparently looking for furnishings for his new crypt. Dawn felt that, besides Willow and the other members of SG-1, she was the only one who actually accepted that Spike was no longer the Big Bad that he still occasionally claimed to be. The others still thought that he was a serial killer held in check by a chip in his head.

Hence Buffy being somewhat peremptory in asking the vampire whether he had happened to see Toth. Dawn wondered if she was the only one who noticed how _tired_Spike looked as he wordlessly pointed behind the group.

All thoughts of Spike were driven out of Dawn's head as blasts of some kind of energy flew through the air, mercifully missing everyone as the group scattered from the hulking figure of the demon Toth.

Dawn noticed that, besides making a bang erupt some feet behind the various items if rubbish Toth hit, the weapon he was firing seemed to do absolutely nothing. Maybe it only worked on living things?

Buffy quickly realised that she had to change her battle plan. It probably wouldn't be a good idea to be hit by a bolt of the energy that Toth was firing, which meant that she had to keep her distance and keep moving. Unfortunately, she hadn't brought a crossbow, so she had to improvise. Buffy pulled a knife from her sleeve, hoping that it was a throwing knife (she had several on her person, but at this moment she wasn't entirely sure which was which) and hurled it at the demon.

Even as the knife spun end over end, hurtling towards Toth, so too did an energy blast streak its way towards Buffy.

Buffy, off balance from hurling the knife, didn't have enough time to move out of the way. Dawn could see Xander making his way to Buffy, but she could tell he was too far away. Dawn, as the nearest, was the only hope.

Even as Dawn ran towards her sister, she could tell that she was moving too slowly, that she wouldn't make it in time, that the blast would hit Buffy.

Then Dawn must've tripped over something, as she suddenly was moving rather faster than she had planned. She cannoned into Buffy, sending the Slayer sprawling even as the bolt of energy hit Dawn right above her heart.

The bolt went right through Dawn, and it seemed, if anything, to be even brighter than before, incandescent, a blinding, amorphous blob...

Dawn collapsed unconscious and the blinding light vanished. It took several moments of frantic blinking before any of the Scoobies could see anything, but when they could they wasted no time in picking up the prone Dawn and taking her home, pausing only for Buffy to pull her knife from Toth's head and pick up the curious, tubular weapon he had been firing.

~*~

Elsewhere, at that very moment, beneath Cheyenne Mountain, SG-1 was preparing to head through the Stargate on a routine meeting with their Tok'ra allies. Sam was looking forward to seeing her father again, and Willow was looking forward to meeting him for the first time.

It was a perfectly normal mission, nothing out of the ordinary. None of the technicians read any anomalous energy readings whilst the 'gate was active.

So, no one understood why, moments after heading through the 'gate, SG-1 came back through and collapsed on the ground. Nor why, moments after that, SG-1 (save for Daniel, oddly enough) came through the 'gate _again_, and fell unconscious upon the bodies of... themselves.


	2. Chapter 2

Dawn woke up, and immediately wished she hadn't. She felt like every nerve in her body was screaming at her, as though she'd run a marathon, flipped over onto to her hands and run on them all the way back to where she started. Only worse.

At least she was in her own bed, though. Dawn could tell that much. Now, if only she could figure out what had happened, because unless she had been doing some crazy stuff while she was asleep, Dawn couldn't remember doing anything that might lead to her feeling the way she did.

In fact, Dawn couldn't remember anything past wheedling Buffy into letting her go to the Magic Box with her. So something must've happened on the way there. Or possibly at the shop itself - hadn't Buffy said Giles had been attacked?

Dawn could hear voices, speaking quietly. She couldn't understand what they were saying, but she recognized them nevertheless. Buffy and Joyce. Something bad must've happened if Buffy had gotten her mother involved - normally the Slayer tried to keep Joyce out of these things. If only Dawn knew what had happened!

Although, right now, Dawn was more concerned with her vision. She'd just opened her eyes, and she was sure that everything shouldn't look so washed out. It looked as though everything had had the colour leeched out of it, leaving faded replicas of what should be there.

Dawn had a scary moment when it suddenly occurred to her that maybe she was the one that was washed out. After all, something had happened to her to erase the memory of the last few hours (Dawn assumed it had been that long) and that might explain why Joyce and Buffy were talking to each other, rather than to her.

Maybe Dawn was a ghost!

The thought was scary enough for Dawn to override her aching limbs and force herself to sit upright, a groan forcing its way past her teeth as she did so. Instantly upon doing so, the voices stopped, and two faces poked around the doorway. It took Dawn several moments to realise who they were - they looked so colourless that she could hardly recognize them as her family. Dawn really hoped her eyesight would sort itself out soon, it was getting on her nerves.

"You're awake." Joyce said softly, coming up on one side to gently take her daughter's hand. Dawn struggled not to flinch from the pain the contact brought, but something must've shown on her face, because Joyce tried to take her hand away again.

But Dawn tightened her grip, focusing on the pain, the sensation of the hand in hers. The truth was, with her eyesight the way it was, everything had a somewhat ethereal quality to it, and it was reassuring to have something solid to focus on, even if it was only pain and her mother's hand.

"Are you alright?" Buffy asked gently. Her heart twisted to see her sister looking so pale, and with such dark shadows beneath her eyes. Dawn looked worse than she had when she had had the 'flu a few years ago - and then she'd been ill enough that Der Kindestod had nearly killed her.

Dawn hesitated a moment whilst she pondered about what she should say. It was doubtlessly obvious that she didn't look good - even if she only looked half as bad as she felt, she looked awful - but on the other hand she would rather not mention the eyesight thing, as she didn't want to worry her mother unduly.

So Dawn settled for saying, in as flippant a voice as she could manage "Oh, not too bad. Just like every nerve in my body is on fire, but other than that, just peachy." Then, after a moment, Dawn asked "What happened?"

Buffy looked at her, surprised. "Don't you remember?"

Dawn went to shake her head, reconsidered halfway through the action on account of the excruciating pain, and settled for looking at Buffy in a meaningful way.

Buffy got the message, and quickly explained about meeting with Giles, finding out about Toth, going to the junkyard, getting shot at by Toth, killing Toth, and Dawn pushing Buffy out of the way of one of Toth's blasts and taking it herself, and then carrying an unconscious Dawn home and staying by her bedside for the last few hours.

Dawn didn't remember it in the slightest. She had hoped that once she knew what had happened, she might begin to remember it, but even now her memory was as blank as before. And, even though her pain seemed to be fading away somewhat, her eyesight was still as bad as it had been when she had woken up.

On the other hand, Dawn had saved Buffy from - she wasn't entirely sure what. She doubted that all Toth had wanted was to incapacitate Buffy, but that was pretty much all that had happened to Dawn. Perhaps whatever it was that Dawn had been shot with worked differently on Slayers?

Which led to Dawn's next question. "Did Giles find out what I was shot with?" she asked.

Buffy shook her head. "No. He said it looked like a - umm, something with a funny name, a Fairy Gemini or something - but then muttered to himself that it didn't do what that was supposed to do. So basically, nada." Buffy finished with a smile when Dawn yawned enormously in the middle of her answer.

"I'm thinking that you need to get some sleep." said Joyce fondly. Dawn would've nodded, but she didn't quite manage it - she had already nodded off.

~*~

General Hammond was watching the video feeds from each of the individual cells he had ordered SG-1 - _both_ SG-1s - be put into. They were still unconscious, even hours after - whatever it was that had happened.

Hammond wondered what had happened. According to every diagnostic that the technicians had run on the Stargate, it was working absolutely fine, and there was no way that it could've malfunctioned.

That didn't explain why the 'gate wasn't working now. Hammond had planned to send a MALP through to the Tok'ra meeting point, but the seventh chevron simply wouldn't lock. No matter which planet was dialled.

Furthermore, Hammond had no idea why, of all the members of SG-1, Daniel was the only one without a duplicate. He would've thought that, if this was due to something that SG-1 had been exposed to on one of their missions, Willow would the one unaffected, as she had been on less missions.

Despite Dr Fraiser's protests, Hammond had forbidden her to examine the team. He remembered when SG-1 had been replaced by robots, what Daniel had found on the other side of the quantum mirror, even the fake SGC the team had been trapped in by Hathor. There were simply too many explanations for what was going on, and until they found out, Hammond wasn't going to let anyone near SG-1 unless they were wearing hazmat suits, and even then only if necessary.

Hammond caution was only increased when he noticed that all nine of them were regaining consciousness at the same time, despite each of them being in different cells. Something odd was going on here - and given that people here went to other planets on a daily basis, that was saying something.

The General wanted to speak to Sam - one of the Sams, anyway. Hopefully there wasn't any difference between them. There certainly wasn't one that he could see - first, because Carter was the most brilliant physicist he had, and if see if she could get the 'gate working again.

Assuming, that is, that Sam wasn't a threat of some kind.

~*~

Meanwhile, back in Sunnydale, Buffy was going to drop by the Magic Box - she had no doubt that Giles was there - and tell him Dawn's symptoms in the hope that it would help him find out whatever it was that Toth had shot her with.

Buffy was also going to tell Giles that Dawn was hiding something. Buffy knew her sister well, and she could generally tell when Dawn was trying to hide something from her. It probably wasn't anything serious - Dawn had seemed pretty much as normal it was possible to seem when looking rather more than half dead - but Buffy didn't like it anyway.

However, all thoughts of Dawn were driven from Buffy's head as she saw a brightly glowing green ball of... something floating slowly towards her. Some kind of energy, perhaps.

Normally, Buffy wasn't afraid of this kind of thing. But something told her that it would be best to get as far away from this thing as possible. Buffy suspected that it was because, as the ball passed over them, the paving stones would bend and distort like looking at the world through a glass of water. Although they went back to normal after the ball passed, Buffy didn't want to find out what that would do to something organic.

So Buffy crossed the street and sprinted to the Magic Box, noticing as she did so that the ball changed direction and made as if to follow her. Buffy ran as only a Slayer can run.

Buffy didn't notice that, after she'd left the ball behind, it pulsed once, emitting a blinding flare that lit up the whole street. She also didn't notice that this covered up the sudden appearance of some kind of insectoid creature that went scuttling into the sewers, or that the ball vanished. Buffy just wanted to tell Giles what she had seen.


	3. Chapter 3

Sam woke up, and instantly knew that something was wrong.

She was in a cell. A cell in the SGC, of all places, which usually meant that something had taken control of either her or the rest of the base. However, given that Sam couldn't remember anything beyond preparing for the meeting with the Tok'ra, she didn't know which the right option was. She certainly didn't feel possessed, but that didn't necessarily mean anything.

There was no way Sam could break out of the cell. She'd even helped modify the designs so that the flaw that Caelus had exploited couldn't be exploited again, and so unless Sam could wormhole her way out of here like the last person to escape from a cell, she was stuck here until someone decided to release her.

Sam hoped they'd come soon. It was boring in there, and she didn't want to miss the opportunity to see her dad.

~*~

Sam woke up, and instantly knew that something was wrong.

The second thing Sam noticed was that she was in a cell in the SGC. She didn't have any memory of the last few hours, which doubtlessly meant that something had gone wrong with her and she had had to be confined.

But the first thing that Sam noticed was that she wasn't Sam.

Oh, she looked like Sam, had Sam's memories, but she wasn't Sam. Which didn't make any sense, because the person that Sam actually was was dead, and had been for years.

Jolinar didn't know what was going on, why she was alive. She could clearly remember her own death at the hands of the Ashrak. She remembered the agony she had gone through in order to make sure that Sam was as untouched by her death as possible.

But what Jolinar didn't remember was why she was alive again, now, years after her own death.

Jolinar couldn't dwell on that now. Someone was talking to her through the intercom, and it looked as though she would find out what had happened in the blank space in her memory that took up the last few hours.

~*~

Hammond really had no reason to choose one of the Sams over the other one. As far as he could tell, there was absolutely no difference - upon awakening, they'd both done exactly the same thing, look around the room and then pondered their situation - so, in the end, he just picked one at random.

Hammond turned on the intercom and said "Carter, can you hear me?"

The woman who, unbeknownst to Hammond, was actually the Tok'ra Jolinar, looked around the room before seeing the source of the voice, whereupon she got up, walked over to it and said "Yes sir. Could you tell me what's going on?"

Hammond suppressed a twinge of disappointment - he had been hoping that Sam would know what was going on - but he told her what little he knew about what had happened.

So, Jolinar wasn't the only person in Sam's body. She wondered if the other Sam was actually Sam - although, if she wasn't, Jolinar had no idea who it might be. And besides, none of the others had ever had a symbiote (unless you counted Teal'c's larval Goa'uld) so Jolinar didn't know who they might be, if they weren't themselves.

But still, Jolinar had never heard of the Stargate splitting people in two (and even if it could, why hadn't Daniel split?) but then she was a field operative, and knew next to nothing about how the 'gates actually worked.

After a quick rake through Sam's memories, Jolinar found that the physicist knew as little as she did about the phenomenon. But, perhaps with Sam's memories, Jolinar would be able to fix the Stargate and go home. She had a second chance at life, and Jolinar certainly wasn't going to waste it. She wanted to see Martouf.

So Jolinar said "I can't do anything unless I can see the machine."

Hammond had expected that. Although it certainly seemed like Carter was still herself, the fact was that he simply didn't have enough to go on to be sure that she wasn't hiding something. Which was why he had Janet Fraiser on standby in the infirmary and a couple of Airmen to escort Sam there situated outside this particular Sam's cell. It was the work of a moment to inform Sam of this.

Jolinar supposed that she should've expected that they would be so cautious. But still, it upset her plans - even if the Taur'i were on better terms with the Tok'ra now, the fact was that she had still concealed her identity from them, and it would definitely make it a lot more difficult to get off the base.

As it turned out, Jolinar needn't have worried, because, halfway to the infirmary, alarm bells began to go off. A prisoner had escaped. Or possibly two, depending on how you defined these things.

~*~

When Willow woke up and found that she had no memory of the past few hours, she thought that she had overtaxed her magical abilities. It had happened before, rather more than she would have liked.

This idea was quickly dispelled by two things: firstly, even minutes after waking up, she still didn't know what had happened, which had never happened to her before. Previously, memory had always returned to Willow eventually. Secondly, and more importantly, she was in a cell, and there was no reasonable explanation for why she was there.

Willow immediately jumped to the conclusion that the base had been taken over, and she was going to be interrogated. Perhaps this was a paranoid view, perhaps it was the memories she still had from when a possessed version of herself had spent hours in a cell identical to this one, but either way Willow couldn't quite shake the idea.

Which meant that she had to get out of here. Unlike the last time Willow had escaped from here, she couldn't just wormhole out, but she still had her magic. It shouldn't be all that hard to open the door.

Willow managed to reach inside herself and find the source of her magic with no problem. That part had always come easily to her. But the problem was that she couldn't seem to draw on the power. Willow tried several times, but had no more success than she would have had emptying a bath with a sieve - every time she tried, her magic slipped through her mental fingers.

At first Willow thought she was just tired, and that she would be able to do it easily just as soon as she had had a little rest. She had just regained consciousness, after all.

But Willow hadn't had this much trouble with magic since she had first begun levitating pencils. Normally, no matter how tired she was, she could do magic. So what was wrong this time?

Eventually, sheer frustration and anger gave Willow the power to draw on her magic, but even then it was weaker by far than it should've been. It took her nearly five minutes to fumble around psychically around with the lock until the could open it, and it left her feeling so exhausted that it was a another few minutes before she could muster the energy to get up and leave.

Willow thought she would try and make her way to the surface, see if she could get to Sunnydale. Hopefully from there, with the Scoobies' help, she could make some kind of plan to take back the base.

But Willow froze on her tracks when she saw something that she really shouldn't - couldn't - be seeing.

~*~

When Willow woke up and found that she had no memory of the past few hours, she thought that she had overtaxed her magical abilities. It had happened before, rather more than she would have liked.

This idea was quickly dispelled by two things: firstly, even minutes after waking up, she still didn't know what had happened, which had never happened to her before. Previously, memory had always returned to Willow eventually. Secondly, and more importantly, she was in a cell, and there was no reasonable explanation for why she was there.

Willow immediately jumped to the conclusion that the base had been taken over, and she was going to be interrogated. Perhaps this was a paranoid view, perhaps it was the memories she still had from when a possessed version of herself had spent hours in a cell identical to this one, but either way Willow couldn't quite shake the idea.

Which meant that she had to get out of here. Unlike the last time Willow had escaped from here, she couldn't just wormhole out, but she still had her magic. It shouldn't be all that hard to open the door.

Or, at least, that would be the case if Willow could access her magic. As it was, she couldn't even find it, no matter how hard she tried. Perhaps whoever had taken control of the base had managed to bind her powers as well?

But Willow wasn't having that. She had broken out before (although, admittedly, she hadn't been herself at the time) and if she had to break out without magic, then that was what she was going to do.

Or, at least, that's what Willow would've done, had she been able to. Sam and the other technicians had made these cells as escape proof as they possibly could, and there was no way Willow was getting out of there without magic.

That's what Willow thought as she thumped the door in frustration, a white hot anger flashing through her. So it was with some surprise that Willow saw that her fist seemed to be enclosed in a perfect sphere of utter blackness.

It wasn't magic, Willow could tell that much. She was pretty sure that she hadn't been possessed by an extra-dimensional being again, so it wasn't that either. But whatever it was, it wasn't going away.

Willow tried to shake it off - it was rather creepy just seeing impenetrable darkness where her hand should be - and in doing so the sphere accidentally came into contact with the cell door.

Which it melted through even easier than a hot knife through butter. Willow, vague uneasiness at the shadowy globe gone, smiled. It looked like this was her ticket out of here, whatever it was.

It was the work of a moment to cut her way through the door.

Willow thought she would try and make her way to the surface, see if she could get to Sunnydale. Hopefully from there, with the Scoobies' help, she could make some kind of plan to take back the base.

But Willow froze on her tracks when she saw something that she really shouldn't - couldn't - be seeing.

Herself.


	4. Chapter 4

Willow started back violently upon seeing herself, memories of her vampiric doppelgänger running through her head. Without the Scoobies around (or, oddly enough, any Airmen) to save her, Willow couldn't help but imagine what a vampire who seemed to be about as sadistic as Angelus, and apparently had a thing for her, would do to her if given a chance. Especially with her powers acting up.

So Willow was rather surprised to see her doppelgänger start backwards at the same time she did. Willow wouldn't have thought that Vampire-Willow was capable of being fazed by anything - after all, she had taken to finding herself in another reality like a duck to water. Or, more accurately, like a master vampire to a Hellmouth town.

But the other Willow was definitely afraid, probably as much as she herself was. Which didn't make any sense, unless she wasn't her vampire doppelgänger. Which in turn meant that something exceedingly strange was happening here.

Apparently, the other version if Willow was thinking the same thing, because they both took a hesitant step towards each other at exactly the same time.

This sparked an odd thought in Willow's head. So far, Other-Willow had reacted in exactly the same way she had. To test this, she waved a hand, which Other-Willow did at exactly the same time. So, perhaps she was looking through a magic mirror of some kind?

No, that couldn't be it. When Willow raised her right hand, Other-Willow also raised her right hand, so they weren't mirror images. Besides, the corridor behind her didn't match. So, there were two Willows, both identical. Willow wondered if the other one was having problems with her powers too.

However, Willow soon found that she had to stop following that train of thought when the Airmen finally arrived - and aimed guns at her. Both of her.

With her powers on the blink, Willow really didn't think that it would be a good idea to get into an argument with people that had enough firepower aimed at her to fill her with more holes than Swiss cheese. So she threw up her hands and said "Don't shoot! I surrender!"

Willow was oddly pleased to see the other version of herself do exactly the same thing at exactly the same time.

~*~

Meanwhile, in Sunnydale, Dawn had just woken up. For the first time that she could remember, she hadn't had a single dream - normally her sleep was filled with fantastical worlds and incredible stories, none of which she remembered upon awakening but always knew that she had had.

At least the crippling pain that had plagued Dawn's every movement had gone, although her vision was still as faded as it had been before. It led to a little difficulty in telling things apart, because everything looked alike in their nondescript-ness.

Dawn didn't really feel any need to get up. Not because she was still tired or anything, but because she just didn't see that getting up and doing something or staying in bed were any different. Which was mildly surprising, given that, unlike most teenagers, Dawn didn't like sleeping in.

Eventually, Dawn decided that she should get up, if only to reassure Joyce that there was nothing wrong with her.

Dawn didn't notice that she hadn't opened the door before she left the room.

~*~

Back at the SGC, both Willows were being escorted to the infirmary on General Hammond's orders, along with Jolinar. Neither of the Willows had managed to work up the courage to talk to each other yet, even after Hammond had told them what had happened, and Jolinar was trying to think what she would say when it was revealed that she wasn't Sam.

Normally, Janet disliked having SG-1 in the infirmary - not because she disliked them personally, but because Jack invariably made a huge fuss about everything, and when Sam and Daniel were injured, they always tried to leave before they were ready, and Willow, despite putting a brave face on things, was mildly scared of hospitals. Teal'c, though, was an ideal patient - even when he was injured, he usually went to meditate it off.

This time, though, Janet was actually looking forward to examining them. If they were as identical as they seemed, it would be the greatest medical breakthrough since penicillin - and just think how it would help solve the Asgard's cloning problem!

So Janet was annoyed when she tried to scan Jolinar, ignoring her tensing as she did so, and came up with nothing.

Not that Janet didn't find anything unusual. She couldn't even find Sam. She scanned her more than once, but each time, it seemed as though Sam wasn't there. Janet knew it wasn't faulty machinery, because when she scanned herself it showed up just fine.

Janet found that exactly the same thing happened with both Willows, and she didn't doubt that she would find the same if she scanned the rest of the team too.

Janet informed the General of this, out of earshot of the patients (and so she didn't notice when Jolinar suddenly relaxed, having heard due to superior Goa'uld senses) and told him that she would like to take blood and tissue samples and examine them physically (Jolinar tensed again).

"How long would that take?" Hammond asked, contemplating the proposal.

"Honestly, sir? I don't know. I don't even know why they aren't showing up on my scans. It could take weeks, maybe months." Janet answered.

Hammond shook his head. "I can't wait months, Doctor. If the Stargate is inactive for that long, we'll get shut down." he said (Jolinar relaxed) "I have to get both Carter's working on a solution, and see if the Rosenbergs can help" (Jolinar tensed again. If Sam was Sam, she would instantly see that Jolinar wasn't Sam).

"So how do you want to proceed, Sir?" Janet asked.

"Well, I'd like to talk to them before I release them. The two Rosenbergs, at least, seem to be themselves. Or herself. I can't imagine anyone else being too shy to talk to herself. Or themselves. Although, that said, I can't imagine why Carter's so jumpy that she keeps tensing every time that you suggest running tests on her. Or, for that matter, how she managed to hear us." said Hammond, who had noticed Jolinar tensing. "Isn't that right, Carter?" he said, loudly enough that the Willows could hear too. It interrupted them staring at each other and acting as though they'd like to talk but couldn't quite figure out how.

Jolinar realised that the game was up. A good agent knew when to tell the truth. "Actually, I'm not Sam. I'm Jolinar of Malkshur." she answered.

Well, Hammond hadn't expected that.

~*~

After Buffy had sprinted to the Magic Box to tell him about the weird, glowing green ball, she had expected Giles to know something about it. Giles always knew something, even if it turned out to be wrong.

All Giles managed to come with was that some magic-user with a grudge and a talent for portals was sending one after Buffy, but given that the only magic-users that fit the bill had either turned into a snake and then been blown up (the Mayor), been possessed by an extra-dimensional being (Ethan) or vanished after rebounding a spell off of a mirror (Amy's mother), Giles didn't think it was that. Although, of course, some vampire or other could've hired outside help, but Buffy hadn't seen any evidence since Dracula of there being any kind of Big Bad.

Which, unfortunately, left him with nothing to do but research. No, that wasn't quite true. Giles had to research and run a shop.

~*~

In the sewers beneath Sunnydale, the insectoid creature that had come through the green, glowing ball was having some problems adjusting to this dimension.

For a start, it was far, far away from the hive mind, which left it feeling lost and alone. Secondly, everything was so bright away from the subterranean caves in which his kind ruled supreme - with teeth harder than diamond and a carapace hard enough that a cave-in wouldn't even dent it, how could it not be top of its food chain?

Besides, the creature was, by human standards, only semi-sentient. It was driven for months at a time by the simple biological impulses of breeding, which wiped out all of its capacity for higher thought (which it generally used to catch food and think of ways in which to impress its desired mate in any case).

So it was baffled by the fact that it was having urges to try and communicate, of all things! Like there was any kind of hive mind it could join around here.

Nevertheless, it knew that it would give in to the urge at some point, but until then, it was going to see if it could find something to eat.

The creature borrowed through the wall of the sewer as easily as it would move through air.


	5. Chapter 5

Hammond had convened a meeting in the briefing room with the members of SG-1, their duplicates, and Jolinar. Given that none of them showed up on any scans that Janet had been able to devise, and it would take months for the doctor to figure out what had happened to them, Hammond had decided that he might as well talk to them all at once. After all, if they had been a threat then the two Willows would certainly have done more than surrender when they had escaped.

So Hammond told them what little he knew about what had happened, and that one of the Sams was actually Jolinar, but didn't know how she had gotten there.

Sam instantly turned to Jolinar and said "Really? You're Jolinar?" and Jolinar, who was more than a little surprised that she hadn't been censured for not telling them that earlier, merely nodded.

Hammond, seeing that Sam was going to ask Jolinar some questions which she almost certainly didn't know the answers to, forestalled her by saying "Okay, that's one difference between duplicates. Is there anything else that anyone would like to confess?"

One Teal'c and both Willows raised their hands. No one else did, although Daniel looked like he was going to simply because he was the only person without a duplicate.

Hammond looked at the Teal'c who had raised his hand. He said "I am not Jaffa, General Hammond. I have no symbiote pouch, nor a larval Goa'uld. I am human."

Hammond thought he was beginning to see a pattern here. Before Teal'c had undergone the Ritual of Prim'tah at puberty, Teal'c wouldn't have had a symbiote. Similarly, a couple of years ago, Sam had been Jolinar. So perhaps the Stargate had somehow brought through an alternative version of them in which Sam was still Jolinar and Teal'c had never been implanted?

But Hammond quickly dismissed that idea. If Teal'c had considered it usual to not have a symbiote, he never would've raised his hand. Besides, Jolinar had said that she remembered dying. So something else must be going on.

The Willows both spoke next, at the same time. Normally, Hammond could deal with two people talking at the same time, but when they both had exactly the same voice and seemed to be saying similar things, he had some difficulty differentiating between them. So he said "One a time please." pointed at the Willow on the left, and said "You first."

Willow said "I'm having problems with my magic. It's still there - but it's really difficult to access it, and incredibly tiring when I do."

"At least you still have your magic." the other Willow complained. "I don't have it all."

Hammond looked at her curiously. An Airmen had told him that the door to this Willow's cell had had a large chunk of it cut out. "How did you escape then, if you didn't have any magic?" he asked.

Willow shrugged "I'm not sure. I got angry at not having any magic, a black globe appeared around my hand and I cut my way through the door with it."

"How exactly is that not magic?" asked Daniel facetiously.

"I don't know what it was, but I know it wasn't magic." Willow answered. Then she prodded Daniel and said "Anyway, why aren't there two of you?"

Daniel didn't answer. When Willow had prodded him, a feeling akin to indigestion had sprung up, and was getting steadily worse. And, to compound his discomfort, appeared to be spreading throughout his body.

Willow, having noticed that Daniel looked like he was trying not to vomit, asked "Are you alright?" but quickly realised that he wasn't when Daniel began to vibrate so rapidly that he was little more than a blur.

However, before anyone had time to react, Daniel had stopped vibrating. Except that it wasn't Daniel anymore.

Willow was sitting where Daniel had been sitting a moment before, in his clothes. Both Jack's buried their faces in their hands and groaned "Not another one!", much to the annoyance of two Willows and the confusion of the third.

~*~

In Sunnydale, Dawn was facing something of a dilemma. Her eyesight wasn't getting better. In fact, it was getting worse, and she was having trouble telling what it was that she was looking at, and she could barely read unless she pressed her face right up close. She'd managed to get through the school day solely because she had always been a good pupil, and so if she looked like she knew what she was doing, the teachers would leave Dawn alone.

But Dawn couldn't get by like that forever, especially if she actually lost her vision completely. But she couldn't tell Buffy or Joyce, both of whom left her feeling stifled as it was and would only bundle her into bed and ply her with chicken soup as if she had a cold or something, and Buffy would nag at Dawn for not telling sooner, and she would never be allowed out again.

Similarly, she couldn't call Xander, who would almost certainly tell Buffy and which would leave her in exactly the same situation. Had Willow been in Sunnydale, Dawn would've called her - the witch had always treated Dawn like an adult, and would probably devise some kind of helpful spell - but Dawn didn't even know which planet Willow was on.

Which left her with Giles. It was likely that Giles would also tell his Slayer, but Dawn wasn't certain. Besides, sooner or later her near blindness would come out, and it would be better if she told someone who might be able to help her with it.

So Dawn waited until Buffy had left for a patrol (Buffy had taken to spending more time at home now that Willow no longer shared a room with her) and Joyce wasn't back from the gallery yet, which made it the perfect time for Dawn to head over to the Magic Box and speak to Giles.

It didn't cross Dawn's mind that it was bad idea for a fourteen year old girl who was nearly blind to head across Sunnydale after dark.

~*~

"What's going on?" demanded the Willow who had been Daniel. The last thing that she remembered was being in Daniel's body and forcing him to kiss her - so what was she doing here? "And why am I there, and there, and why are there two Sams, and two Jacks..." she trailed of when she realised that the only person not represented at the table in abundance was Daniel, and given that the last thing Willow remembered was being in his body... "Oh Goddess, I'm Daniel, aren't I?" she whispered.

"Well, you were a second ago." one of the Jacks agreed. "Now you seem to be another Willow. We'll be drowning in you in a minute. It's such a shame that Daniel won't be here to see it."

"Shut up, Jack." said all three Willows at exactly the same time, blushing in unison.

"What do you remember?" asked one Willow. "And do you still have magic?" asked the other.

"Umm, kissing myself." Willow said, much to the Jacks' amusement. "As for the magic..." she said, before turning her attention inwards, seeking the source of her magic. It was there, to her relief, but it seemed somewhat ghostly, as though it wasn't quite there. The indigestion, though, was very real.

And, suddenly, Daniel was back, blinking owlishly. "What just happened?" he asked.

That was a question which Hammond would very much like to know the answer to.

~*~

Dawn realised that it probably wasn't the best idea that she had ever had to try and walk somewhere when she could barely see. Despite the fact that she knew Sunnydale very well, she'd lost count of the times that she had tripped on uneven pavement - and she wasn't even off of her own street yet!

Dawn could, fortunately, still tell the difference between where a building was and where one wasn't, so she knew when she came to a road. She also still had her hearing, so she could tell that there wasn't any oncoming traffic. But what Dawn didn't remember was the fact that she had to step off a curb to cross over. Expecting to put her foot on solid ground that wasn't there, Dawn would've gone sprawling onto the road had someone not caught her and hauled her upright.

For a second, Dawn thought that it was Buffy - who else could lift her up so easily, and who else would want to? - but then she caught the scent of cigarette smoke, and a rough, English voice said "You should be more careful, you know. There's lots of dangerous things out and about after dark. Although none of them will get you if you fall and break your neck."

Dawn blushed, and muttered "Shut up, Spike."

"Now now, is that any way to talk to someone who saved you a nasty spill? What would the Slayer say if she heard you?" said Spike, with amusement.

"She would say the same thing." Dawn said, moving forward and taking great care not to make the same mistake twice. She didn't want Spike to catch on that there was something wrong.

Spike chuckled. "Damn right, she would." but then he became serious again "What are you doing out, Niblet? I wasn't kidding when I said it was dangerous."

"I need to speak to Giles." Dawn said shortly, conserving her concentration for not walking into anything.

"Hasn't he figured out how to use a phone by now?" Spike asked, easily keeping step with the teenager.

"He has, but it's personal. I didn't want to talk about it over the phone." Dawn answered, wishing that the vampire would just go away already.

"Wouldn't your mother be a better person to talk to about that? All that ponce is going to do is clean his glasses and run away." said Spike drily.

"Eww, Spike! It's not about that! It's about... something else." Dawn answered disgustedly.

"Is it about the fact that you've nearly walked into two trees, three lampposts, me twice and tripped over your own feet no less than seven times?" Spike asked acutely. "There's something wrong with your eyes, isn't there?"

Dawn didn't get to answer, because a giant insect exploded from the ground in front of them, rearing upwards and chattering teeth that looked like diamonds. Spike pushed Dawn behind him, saying as he did so "Bugger, and here's me without my bug repellent."


	6. Chapter 6

Either Spike had pushed Dawn a little harder than he had meant to, or her normal clumsiness and abnormal eyesight had combined in order to make her fall over. Either way, she fell to the ground with a jolt, pain jarring through her as she hit the pavement. Although Dawn wasn't unduly bothered by that. What bothered her was that, at the impact, her eyesight had come flooding back in glorious colour, just in time for her to see a giant insect clacking its teeth in front of her.

Dawn screamed. She had never liked insects, and giant ones were worse.

"Dawn" Spike said, never taking his eyes of the bug for a moment "you might want to run away."

Dawn might have done, had not Spike told her to. But Buffy faced her fears every night, so Dawn should at least be able to stick around while cowering behind a master vampire who was her only defence from a giant bug. "Not a chance." she said, more bravely than she felt.

Spike didn't take the trouble to answer - truth be told, he had stopped listening to her. He was contemplating his foe.

The bug should've attacked by now, if it was aggressive. It certainly looked aggressive. But it hadn't, it was just standing there. Which didn't make any sense.

That was about as far as Spike's strategizing went. He was never one for that kind of thing. He charged forwards, arms outstretched and avoiding the flailing, spindly limbs, lamenting the fact that he didn't have a weapon as he did so.

Spike was mildly surprised that the creature didn't even try to move as he bore it over, tipping it onto its back. He was even more surprised when, rather than waving its many legs around helplessly like most insects would, the thing merely tilted its head and chewed at the ground, borrowing through it at a ridiculous pace.

Then the bug was gone.

"So" said Spike, turning back to Dawn as though nothing had happened "What's wrong with your eyes, Bit?"

~*~

Hammond had set both Willows, Sam and Jolinar to finding out what had gone wrong with the Stargate - and Daniel, when one of his sporadic changes made him another Willow. The rest of the time, Daniel was researching everything related to Ancients and their technology, to see if anything like this had happened before. Meanwhile, the Jacks and the Teal'cs were playing doubles tennis in the gym, one Jack and one Teal'c on each team. So far, they'd tied every match.

Some hours later, after virtually taking apart the Stargate and putting it back together again, they hadn't found a single thing wrong with it. As far as they were concerned, the 'gate was working perfectly. Similarly, Daniel hadn't been able to find a single thing about the Stargate doing anything other than what it was supposed to do.

So it was surprising when, in a sudden flash of light, someone appeared in the 'gate room. He was young, probably in his late twenties, with black and white hair and a staff strapped to his back. He also seemed to have a Goa'uld hand device, but it was difficult to tell because he had both hands clasped behind his head.

Oddly enough, the mere fact of his appearance wasn't the thing that surprised Hammond the most - he'd seen a great many similar things in his time at the SGC - but the fact that Sam had levelled her gun at him, and Jolinar (who as far as Hammond knew, didn't even have a gun) did so too. One Willow held a fireball in either hand, whilst the other looked like she wished she was too.

And all of them were looking at the man with both hostility and fear.

~*~

Dawn got up and dusted herself off, ridiculously pleased that she could actually see what she was doing. She guessed that it had worn off after all. "Nothing, Spike. I'm fine." she said, answering his question.

Spike looked at her sceptically, and Dawn was so glad that she could see that. "How many fingers am I holding up, then?" he asked.

"You haven't even moved your hands." Dawn answered, smiling. She felt wonderful.

Spike still looked sceptical, but less so. If Dawn could see, he couldn't really think of any reason that she would've acted the way she had. But if she didn't want to tell him, that was fine by Spike. It wasn't as though he cared anyway.

"So, do you want me to walk you to Giles, or back home? Even if you can see the bad things around here doesn't mean they won't still eat you." Spike asked.

Dawn shook her head. "Nah, Buffy would kill you if she saw you around the house." she answered, walking back the way she came, whistling as she did so.

Spike followed anyway. Even if he couldn't hit the Slayer back, it was still the high point of his day if he could antagonize her. Besides, if a demon did jump out at Dawn, he wouldn't mind beating it to a bloody pulp, in lieu of Buffy.

~*~

"Don't shoot." said the person who appeared in the 'gateroom calmly, as if having firearms, both literal and of the weapon variety, pointed at him were perfectly normal. The man had an odd accent that was difficult to place - it sounded almost equal parts Italian and what Daniel would've recognized as Coptic, but not quite either.

"Why not?" Sam hissed "You want to use us to power a machine again?"

Hammond had had enough. He didn't know who this man was, but he would be damned if he let his subordinate shoot him in cold blood. "Major! Put down your gun! The same goes for the rest of you." he ordered.

"It's Caelus, sir. The thing who tried to kill us and kill the Ancients. The one who knocked out the entire base and took over my body!" Sam growled, not lowering her weapon.

"Thing?" said Caelus mildly. "I resent that. I assure you, I am no thing."

"No?" Willow snarled, fire flaring brighter in her hands "That isn't even your face. You could look like anyone you like. You don't die when you're stabbed, you enter our minds like walking into a room. How are you not a thing?"

"I did explain all that, you know. It's just a question of genetics. Besides, I can't do that anymore." Caelus said.

"Prove it." said the other Willow. She was icily calm - she might not have magic or a weapon, but she'd go down fighting if it came to it.

Caelus rolled his eyes. "You know that it's impossible to prove that you can't do something, right?" he asked rhetorically.

"Then how do we know that you're telling the truth?" asked Jolinar. With Sam's memories and the ability to sense Caelus' Goa'uld, she was siding with the others.

"I never lied to you before." Caelus answered, still not losing his calm.

"Enough!" Hammond roared. They couldn't just shoot Caelus where he stood, but they could lock him up and make sure that he never, ever saw the light of day again. Unless, of course, he escaped like he had last time. "Lower your weapons. That is an order." he said coldly. He wasn't sure that they would obey - the Goa'uld had nearly killed them in what he had been told was an insanely painful way, after all - but he acted as though they would.

"Sergeant, call Jack, Daniel and Teal'c up here." he said to Walter. The man nodded, then rushed to obey. Then he turned to Caelus again, and didn't let on that he was glad to see that, although the weapons were still in their hands, Jolinar and Sam were no longer pointing them at Caelus, and that Willow no longer held fireballs - although he suspected that that was because she looked almost too weak to stand.

"Caelus, do you have any weapons?" Hammond asked. He was certainly going to have him searched anyway, but if he remembered the report correctly the staff on his back turned into a gigantic scythe, and he didn't particularly want anyone coming within reach of that. This way, Caelus might give them up voluntarily.

"Just a _kara kesh_." Caelus answered, slowly moving his hand from behind his head to show it.

"Don't forget the staff with the six inch spike that turns into a scythe that you've got strapped to your back." Willow said.

For the first time, an emotion flickered across Caelus' face, too quickly to tell what it was. "Yes, there is that." he said blandly.

Hammond quickly told one Airman to take the weapons off of him - he knew that the science department would love to examine the scythe (even if it was currently a staff), and he was sure that Daniel would want to examine the runes on it - and the Airman did so reluctantly, remembering that this man had knocked out the entire base.

Caelus surrendered the _kara kesh_ easily, but he obviously didn't want to pass over the staff. Hammond was mildly surprised to see the Airman struggle under its weight - it must be a lot heavier than it looked.

As the Airman went to take the weapons to storage - they had to checked to see if they were dangerous (well, more dangerous than they were ordinarily) before allowing them to be fully examined - Hammond said to Caelus "Now, spread your legs and consent to be searched."

"That might be a problem." said Caelus, and Sam's and Jolinar's guns came up again. Both Willows looked they wished they had some kind of weapon to point as well.

"Why?"

Caelus didn't answer, just pointed down. For the first time, Hammond noticed that his left leg didn't straighten completely, giving him a lopsided appearance. He certainly wouldn't have the full range of motion - in fact, it would be mildly surprising if he could walk at all.

Given that what a symbiote couldn't heal, a sarcophagus certainly could - and, as an Ancient, Caelus had probably had access to even more advanced healing technology than that - Hammond wondered what could possibly have happened to cause such damage.

Then again, Caelus had just appeared for a reason they had yet to ascertain, and Hammond was standing in the same room as a Tok'ra that had been dead for years and a young witch. Anything was possible.

~*~

Author's note: seeing as how there was widespread outrage to Caelus not having a better ending in 'The Rings of Hell', I've brought him back. Enjoy.

As for the accent: Italian is widely considered to be, in terms of vocabulary, the most similar to Latin, and therefore the most similar to Ancient. Similarly, Coptic is the descendant of Ancient Egyptian. Thus, someone who spoke both of these languages when they weren't dead may have had an accent that was a blend of these.


	7. Chapter 7

It had been decided that Daniel would be the one to interrogate Caelus: Hammond wasn't going to let the others near Caelus, both for the fear that Caelus might influence them through their Ancient genes or Goa'uld remnants, or that they might seek retribution for what he had done to them. Besides, since meeting Caelus, Daniel had carried out extensive research on him.

Unfortunately, Daniel hadn't found a whole lot. The Romans had primarily taken the Greek legends of Ouranos and translated the name as Caelus - there was very little that he had actually found about Caelus himself.

Perhaps most interestingly, Daniel had found that Caelus had never claimed to be a god, and hadn't been truly identified as one. Instead, he was known more widely as Caelum, or heaven, the Roman counterpart to Olympus. Daniel suspected that this might be a reference to the fact that Caelus had been able to control several bodies at the same time, and most likely had the power to control unlimited amounts of people all across the galaxy - thus, like heaven, he was everywhere.

Secondly, Caelus was _old_. He was older than any of the more well-known Roman gods - indeed, he was the grandfather of Jupiter, king of the gods - and the son of Aether and Dies, two primordial beings that were both related to light and day.

Which made Caelus seem like a good guy - with Light and Day as father and mother, how could he be evil? - but he also had the malevolent-sounding epithet _Nocturnus_appending his name, describing him as the night sky and the enemy of Sol, the sun. Which wasn't so pleasant sounding.

So, other than that, Daniel had been able to find out very little, which was why - despite the suffering Caelus had forced upon him and his friends - Daniel was willing to interrogate the Goa'uld. Not only would he find out why Caelus was here, and hopefully how to fix the Stargate and how to put everyone back together again, but also tell Daniel some more about his history and that of the Ancients.

Nevertheless, despite his eagerness, Daniel felt some trepidation in entering the room in which Caelus sat, idly twirling a pen between his fingers (he had requested one and Hammond had seen no reason to deny it to him. So far, he had done nothing with it other than play with it).

"What do I call you?" asked Daniel, as an opening question.

Caelus looked at Daniel blankly, still twirling the pen. "If you can't manage Caelus, you'd probably have too much trouble with High Lord." the Goa'uld said wryly.

Daniel flushed slightly, despite himself. "No, what I meant was, what is your name? Are you called anything other than Caelus? Some old texts of ours make reference to you, but I'm curious as to what you call yourself." Daniel was sure that Jack, at least, wasn't pleased at him for using this slow technique, but if it allowed him to find more information in the long run Daniel was all for it.

"Really." said Caelus, voice giving nothing away. "What do these texts of yours say about me?" Caelus was genuinely curious, for all that he didn't show it. Having been wiped out of existence by some unknown being and left as nothing but a vague, irrepressible memory, he wanted to find out what people remembered about him.

Daniel didn't see any harm in telling him that. "According to them, you are known as Caelus Nocturnus, the night sky, and enemy of Sol." he answered.

For the first time, Caelus showed an emotion - fury. Daniel noticed that Caelus was gripping the pen so tightly that he was sure it would break into pieces at any moment, and that Caelus was so angry that he actually seemed to be shaking. Daniel wondered if he should get out before Caelus threw the table at him, or something.

Then, just as suddenly as the emotion had appeared it vanished again, and Caelus laughed. Daniel let out a breath he hadn't even known he had been holding. "Ah, it is a joke. Sol and I got on rather well, but Sol was an unmerciful tease. It is a joke." Caelus said, repeating himself.

Daniel decided not to follow that much further. "So, what are you actually called, if not... that?" he asked, tactfully deciding not to say Nocturnus again, although he filed it away for future examination.

"You can call me... Aeturnus. Caelus Ori Aeturnus." Caelus answered, a slight smile playing around his lips.

Daniel could understand why Caelus might find it amusing. In the Roman tradition, the middle name indicated the family or clan name - so, presumably, the rest of Caelus' family would also have been of the Ori clan - but the last name was a descriptive name given by others. Given that Caelus had outlived the Ancients by thousands of years, as far as Daniel knew, and probably predated most of them in any case, calling himself _Eternal_ was only fitting.

However, Daniel thought it was probably a good time to stop indulging his curiosity and get back to the matter in hand. "So, tell me, Caelus Ori Aeturnus, why are you here?" Daniel asked.

"The Alterrans descended me." Caelus answered shortly, back to being inexpressive.

"Why?" asked Daniel. The only time he had heard of the Ancients doing something like that was when they had punished Orlin for helping the people of Velona build a weapon to defend against the Goa'uld - and even then, they hadn't descended him, only trapped him on that lifeless planet. So what had Caelus done that had made them descend him and send him here, of all places?

"I can't remember why. All I remember is that there was a vote about whether or not someone should be sent down, and if so, who it should be. Salus and her faction voted for someone to be sent down, as did Mercury and the other Accelerationists. Pluto's conservatives were against it, but they're against everything. Orlin wanted to descend, as did most of Mercury's lot, and once Pluto saw that someone was going down he put himself forward, but eventually Salus chose me, and no one else put forward a more suitable candidate, so here I am. I have no idea why they wanted someone down here though, normally they're all about the non-interference." Caelus answered.

Assuming that Caelus was telling the truth - and Daniel was inclined to believe that he was, because, no matter what else he might have done, Caelus hadn't lied to them - then it must mean that something of rather more than Earth-shattering importance must be happening on this plane of existence for the Ancients to involve themselves. "Do you have any idea why, a theory of some kind?" Daniel asked hopefully.

Caelus shrugged. "About why they chose me? I'm assuming because, unlike Orlin, I'm not in love with any of you and therefore likely to expose some of our technology, and unlike the Accelerationists' faction I don't want to share all of our technology, but unlike Pluto, I'm not so strongly against the idea of doing whatever it is that I'm down here for that I won't do what needs to be done, whatever that is."

"I meant do you have any idea about why you were descended in the first place. As far as we know, the only problem is that the Stargate isn't working, there's a few duplicates of us that are slightly different to each other, and I sometimes turn into Willow. It's hardly something that the Ancients would involve themselves in." Daniel said.

"I agree, but then I don't know what's going on. The only theory I have doesn't work out unless you've had sex with Willow-" Caelus began but was cut off when Daniel went bright red and began spluttering. And to further compound Daniel's embarrassment, he knew that not only were the rest of SG-1 watching, including both Willows, which would insure that he never heard the end of this, but this interrogation was being recorded, and Daniel just knew that Jack would get his hands on a copy.

Daniel was saved from setting himself on fire from the heat of his furious blushing when the door opened to reveal Willow, face as red as her hair. Willow said "Would Daniel and I sharing a body for a while count?"

Caelus thought for a moment, then shrugged again. "Probably. Like I said, I don't know exactly what's going on." he answered.

Seeing that Daniel was obviously incapable of speaking for the time being, Willow took it upon herself to say "But you think you know." the question obvious from the tone.

Caelus didn't answer right away, he just leant forward, pen still twirling from finger to finger. "Tell me, when your team splits up on missions and one of the groups gets in danger, does the other group know instinctively?"

Neither Daniel nor Willow had to think to know that the answer was yes. Their missions frequently went awry, but they always knew when something happened to the others after they had split up. Up until that moment, they had always thought that it was because they were so close, but now they weren't so sure. But they nodded anyway.

"I think that, when I controlled your bodies, I left a - remnant, if you will, linking you together. So, the reason Daniel is turning into Willow probably because there's a remnant of her left in you - but only a little part, which is why you're Daniel most of the time. Anyway, that is why you're the only one affected differently." Caelus explained.

Daniel had recovered sufficiently by now to ask "But we all went into the Stargate together, so why weren't we affected in the same way?"

Surprisingly, it was Willow who answered. "Because it wasn't the Stargate that did it. Remember, we can't find anything wrong with it? Which means that it must be something else..."

"But if all of us were in the Stargate at the same time..." Daniel mused.

"Except Spike!" Daniel and Willow exclaimed together. Besides Drusilla, who they couldn't do anything about (although Willow suspected that, after seeing her with Cole, Drusilla would be just fine), Spike was the only other person Caelus had possessed

"Looks like you don't need me after all." said Caelus drily.

~*~

Having watched the entire interplay through the two-way mirror, Sam pulled out her mobile phone. She was going to call Spike - maybe they could find out what had happened to him, reverse it, and everything would be alright. And, of course, Sam would get to see him again. It had been too long.

~*~

Author's note: Yes, Caelus is from the Ori family. No, I'm not going to expand on that for some considerable time. Yes, the mythology in this chapter is, to the best of my knowledge, correct (Caelus has even been called occasionally Caelus Aeturnus).

Mercury is the god of, amongst other things, trade. He seems like the kind of person who would want to share the Ancient's technology with everyone. Pluto, god of the underworld, doesn't. Salus is the goddess of salvation, and it's up to you decide her motivation.

Sol is the god of the sun. Hence our sun being called Sol.


	8. Chapter 8

Dawn nearly had a heart attack when the moment she crossed the threshold into her house, Buffy appeared out of nowhere, simultaneously pulling her inside and slamming the front door behind her and yelling "Dawn! You know it's dangerous outside! What were you thinking!?"

"Umm, that I had a headache and a walk might be helpful." Dawn answered mildly, knowing that no matter what she said, Buffy would find a way to yell at her.

"Well, walking around Sunnydale after dark is a good way to cure a headache. You know why? Because dead people don't get headaches!" Buffy shouted.

The door opened again, revealing Spike standing outside and an amused smirk on his face. "We can, you know. You screaming is giving me one right now. In fact, you screaming is probably giving every vamp in town a headache." he said, unable to resist needling the Slayer at every opportunity.

Buffy ignored him, saying to Dawn quietly (Dawn was thankful to Spike for that, at least. She wasn't keen on having her ears shredded by Slayer-scream) "Please don't tell me that you went out with Spike."

"Okay." Dawn replied.

Buffy looked baffled. "Okay what?" she asked, bemused.

"Okay, I won't tell you that I went out with Spike." Dawn said, also unable to resist annoying her sister.

"So you did go out with Spike!" Buffy declared, voice rising several octaves.

"No." Dawn answered truthfully. Spike had met up with her after she'd left, so she hadn't, technically, gone out with Spike. In the literal sense, not the "On a date" sense, which Dawn hadn't done either.

Buffy, evidently too annoyed to be bothered with her exasperating brat of a little sister, turned to Spike and said, in a low threatening voice "Stay away from Dawn, or-"

Spike interrupted her before she could finish "You'll let her get eaten by giant insects?" then he frowned and rummaged around in a pocket, pulling out his mobile. "Oh, feel free to go back to yelling at each other now. I've just got to take this."

"Oh, is it Sam? Tell her I said hi!" said Dawn excitedly to Spike's back as he left.

Buffy dragged her away, closing the door and locking it this time (not that she supposed it would stop Spike from getting in if he really wanted to) and saying "Now then, about that giant bug Spike mentioned..."

~*~

"'ullo, Sam." Spike said, answering his phone. "What do you want?"

"_Can't I just call you when I feel like it?_" Sam replied.

"Well, you could, but you never have so far." Spike said, a little grumpily. Since he'd last seen Sam in Sunnydale, she hadn't called him once. Of course, he hadn't called her either, but that was because he was an evil vampire who was above stuff like that.

Sam, of course, wasn't going to let it go at that. "_Well, you never call me either, so you can't complain. Anyway, I was just calling to see how you are._" she said.

Spike suspected that there was whole lot more to it than that, but he was willing to take it at face value. "Me? I'm just fine. 'sides, you know, being driven out of my mind by the Scoobies popping up everywhere. Dawn says hi, by the way."

"_Tell her I said hi, too. So, listen - nothing weird has happened to you lately?_" Sam said, and Spike noticed the undercurrent of tension in her voice and couldn't help being amused by it. She was worried about him!

"Well, a giant bug appeared out of nowhere ten minutes ago, but that's pretty normal for Sunnydale." Spike answered. Then promptly dropped his phone in surprise when a giant ball of glowing green light appeared in front of him, heading straight for him.

Now, monsters Spike could fight. He would even have a crack at a magic-user if the mood was upon him. But mystical balls of energy were a little out of his league. Which meant he had to get out of there before it touched him - because he sure as hell didn't want to find out what it would do to him if it did.

Unfortunately, Spike didn't have a whole lot of options. The green ball was taking up most of the driveway, and whilst there was room for him to squeeze past it, he wasn't willing to bet his life that he could make it, especially not if it moved.

So Spike's only other option was to yank open the Summers' door (noticing with some amusement as he did so that he had just broken their lock) and dash inside, where he collided headlong into Buffy, who had apparently seen the light and had gone outside to check what it was.

Both of them collapsed to the ground in a tangle of limbs, much to Spike's distaste (although that was alleviated somewhat by the fact that he was sure Buffy was blushing). He leapt up again as soon as he could and went deeper into the house, and Buffy, seeing that this was the same ball of energy that she had run away from before, followed suit.

There were two things that neither of them noticed, in all the confusion.

Firstly that the ball of light had stopped directly over Spike's phone, still connected as it was Sam's. Neither of them could know that Sam was, at that very moment, hearing a crackling, inhuman voice say "help... me... sam".

Neither Spike nor Buffy noticed that, at the very moment that the ball of energy had appeared, Dawn had disappeared. Nor that, when the ball vanished so completely that it was hard to imagine that it was ever there, Dawn reappeared in her bedroom, her vision as blurry and faded as it had been before meeting the insect.

~*~

The rest of SG-1 watched as Sam called Spike, watched her smile as they spoke, watched her bemused expression as he presumably said that he was fine, then the horrified expression on her face a second before her phone dropped from her numb fingers with a clatter, and went dead.

And they all said, in unison, variations on the theme of "Are you alright? What happened?"

Sam didn't answer, not right away. It wasn't just the plea for help that so unnerved her - in her job, she encountered things like that rather more often than she would've liked - but the feelings that that the voice had filled her with.

The voice hadn't been human, Sam could tell that much. It had sounded infinitely more like the crackle of static on a radio. But, in a way that Sam couldn't understand, the voice had been so, so lonely, so lonely and afraid that it overwhelmed her.

Sam had only ever heard a voice that had even come close to sounding like that, and that had been Cassie when they had thought that she was going to explode. It had been that voice which had made Sam stay with Cassie, knowing that she would die there but unable to leave Cassie to die alone.

But this voice dwarfed that.

Sam hadn't a clue as to how she could help - she didn't even know if she could - but she was going to do everything in her power to help. Now she just needed to get across the maelstrom of feelings to the others, so that they understood to.

~*~

While Sam tried to explain to General Hammond and the others exactly why they should go to Sunnydale (after all, how did they know that it hadn't been Spike who had made that call, in the throes of being controlled by his demon or something? In any case, it was the only lead they had...) Caelus had been put in a cell.

This frustrated Caelus. Not because he was in the cell - he perfectly understood why they had seen fit to put him in there, for all that he disliked the enclosed space - but because they hadn't given him back his scythe. Again, he understood why they hadn't - they had no clue as to what it did and they weren't going to allow a dangerous prisoner access to a weapon - but it still rankled.

Caelus had had his scythe for a very, very long time. He had had it longer than he had had a Goa'uld, and as he was, far and away, the oldest Goa'uld alive that was saying something. Caelus had a psychic connection to it - it was that which allowed him to disguise it as a staff - but more than that, it was his, a part of him in a way that none of these humans could ever understand. And he wanted it back.

Of course, it would be more than a little difficult for Caelus to actually get to it - he couldn't break out in the same way he had last time - but then, he had some skills in that area.

~*~

The race that the humans knew as the Ancients had, after millennia of evolution, developed skills that less-evolved humans might see as supernatural.

Far and away the most common of these was telekinesis, which was why the descendants of the Ancients who reached a certain level of evolution frequently gained this power. This power sometimes evolved into the ability to read the surface thoughts of someone else, as well.

Somewhat rarer, but still fairly common, was the ability to heal, as demonstrated by Jack when he had been under the influence of the Ancient's repository of knowledge. The more skilful practitioners of this art were capable of healing nigh-on any wound or illness nearly instantaneously, and even raise the deceased if they hadn't been dead too long.

Rarer still were those who developed purely psychic gifts, such as the ability to read a mind or predict a future. Equally rare were those that developed an incredible facility to absorb and redirect the life force of those around them, something which would come to be called magic. The power of Ancients such as these dwarfed that of their descendant, Willow, powerful witch though she was.

Then there were even rarer gifts - the ability to raise one's body temperature, and the temperature of things around you - to teleport across vast distances in the blink of an eye - to communicate with the spirits of those long since dead - to calculate the probability of an action so rapidly that it seemed almost as though one could tell the future - and myriad other abilities.

Caelus' power was rarer than these. Only one other had ever shared his power, but that's another story.

Most people could actively move in three dimensions - up and down, forward and backwards, left and right. Caelus could move in a fourth - through time.

It wasn't as simple as that, of course. For Caelus to actually move forward or backward in time took an incredible amount of power, plus the possibility that he might create a paradox which he would have to sustain until he put it right. And, after having spent an untold time in a prison in which time didn't exist, and more years than Caelus' cared to count before that with the genetic powers over the Goa'uld, Ancients and Vampires precluding his natural talents, Caelus simply didn't have the strength to time travel. The 'muscles', as it were, that he used to do it had atrophied.

What Caelus could do was speed up or slow down time around him. Like, for example, around the cell door. He could speed up time around that to such an extent that thousands of years would pass in a second, which would be plenty of time for it to disintegrate. Then he could speed up time around himself, meaning that he would be moving so fast that he would effectively be invisible, meaning that he could break out and retrieve his scythe, leaving no one the wiser.

Caelus set to work, mustering the necessary energy to escape.

~*~

Author's note: although you may not agree with me, there have been several cases on Stargate of people who are close to ascension having different powers. Both Khalek and McKay, for example, had telekinesis as their primary power but later developed the ability to read surface thoughts. Adria could do that too, as well as resurrect the recent dead. Jack developed healing, whilst Daniel, sharing with Merlin, developed telekinesis and the ability to hurl bolts of energy around. So it's possible that other powers, more in line with what you might expect from a Roman god, occurred.

Now, I'm sure you're wondering why Caelus, a sky god, can manipulate time? Wouldn't you think that he'd summon lightning or something? Well, Caelus has been identified with the Aion, god of eternal time, so it's reasonable to assume that Caelus might have time-related powers.


	9. Chapter 9

Dawn was scared, but not for the reasons you might expect.

She wasn't scared because her vision was so faded that she couldn't tell what she was looking at, or that Dawn was pretty sure her hearing and sense of touch was going too. As for her sense of taste - judging by the culinary disasters Dawn had eaten with relish over the years, it was doubtful whether she'd ever had one. Dawn was pretty sure that she should've been scared by that, but she wasn't.

Dawn also wasn't scared because she had suddenly found herself in her bedroom with no memory of how she had gotten there. After being shot by whatever weapon Toth had used, which had wiped out her memory of most of that day, Dawn wasn't unduly fazed by the loss of a few minutes - especially given that she had probably just walked upstairs but had been so busy trying to see that she hadn't noticed.

What Dawn was scared of was Spike. Well, not precisely Spike, but what he had reminded her of. For some reason, the image of a vampire face had been indelibly linked with another face - one with grey/green skin, white hair, and cruel, inhuman yellow eyes. Dawn even had a name for them - _Larua_.

But the odd thing was, Dawn had never seen one of these _Larua_. So she didn't know how it was that suddenly their appearance was as known to her as that of a vampire. And having memories shoved in her head that weren't hers did scare Dawn.

But, as Dawn sat on the edge of her bed and wondered what she should do, she found, to her intense relief that the memory of the _Larua _was fading, until Dawn was incapable of envisaging its face. Smiling, secure once again in the knowledge that her mind was her own, Dawn drifted off to sleep.

~*~

Willow, the one without magic, knew that something had happened even before the alarms had gone off indicating that Caelus had broken out of his cell.

It wasn't the same as the sensation that Willow always got from someone else doing magic. That, to her, had always been just a muted version of the ecstasy that she felt casting even simple spell.

This was more like someone had struck a guitar string, causing it to vibrate wildly - and making Willow vibrate at the same time.

Willow felt that she had to find out what had caused it. At least it might help with the useless feeling that had been growing inside her as she found that she couldn't fix the Stargate, couldn't do magic, couldn't even manage to do whatever it was that had allowed her to break out if her cell in the first place.

So, whilst everyone else rushed to the nearest computer monitor to review the camera footage from Caelus' cell to find out what he had done, Willow left to find the source of the curious feeling.

Willow wasn't unduly surprised that the trying to find the source of the feeling happened to lead her to Caelus. She'd expected that, when the feeling just happened to coincide with his escape.

Willow was surprised, however, to find that Caelus hadn't actually escaped. He was still in his cell. Admittedly, the cell door was nowhere in sight, and Caelus was sitting on the floor idly tracing a pattern on the oversized scythe in his lap, eyes closed, but at least he was still in his cell.

Caelus heard the approaching footsteps and was mildly surprised that they had decided to only send one person for him. He didn't bother opening his eyes - the truth was, bending time in order to retrieve his scythe had taken rather more energy than he had hoped. Caelus doubted that he would've been able to open his eyes even if he tried.

"What did you do?" asked Willow curiously, as she examined the space where the cell door should've been.

Caelus found, much to his surprise, that he could open his eyes. But that wasn't the only thing that he found surprising.

He stared at Willow. Sure, Caelus had been told that everyone had been split into two, and that one Willow had magic and the other didn't. But Caelus had never thought that that would mean that the magicless Willow had something else instead. He couldn't quite put his finger on exactly what Willow did have, but he had a feeling that it wasn't anything good.

Willow, though, didn't know that Caelus was thinking that. She just thought he was staring at her. Despite developing a lot from the painfully shy girl she had been before meeting Buffy, she still didn't really like being the centre of attention. Especially when said centre of attention happened to belong to a Goa'uld who had previously tried to kill her, and was now armed and there was nothing to stop him from killing her. So Willow naturally demanded shrilly "Stop staring at me!"

"_Ignosce mihi_" Caelus said, although he didn't stop staring. "It's just that something about you is... wiggy."

Willow looked at him oddly. "Why did you say that? Only we - only the Scoobies say that." she said.

Caelus shrugged. It had been from absorbing the memories of several inhabitants of this planet (including Willow) that he had learned English in the first place - a language which he had previously never heard, let alone heard of. He supposed that the Alterrans had merely suppressed those memories rather than wiping them out entirely, which explained why he still knew the language and had evidently just used a colloquialism. He wondered what else the Alterrans had done with his memories, and wondered if he would ever find out.

Caelus didn't have to explain any of this, because at that moment a half-dozen Airmen rounded to corner with guns at the ready. Caelus sighed - it looked like he was going to have to give up his scythe again, and he really didn't want to do that. And who knew what they might do to him for breaking out in the first place?

~*~

Dawn began screaming at the top of her lungs, thrashing this way and that in her sleep. Buffy and Joyce came rushing into her room thinking she was under attack, and Spike followed not far behind (he wasn't going to miss a demon attack in the Bit's bedroom) but, to their surprise, there wasn't any nocturnal invader. Dawn was alone.

So, naturally, Dawn's mother and sister tried to wake and comfort her, convince her that she had had a bad dream. Neither of them took much account of the still-sleeping Dawn mumbling inaudibly - they just took it as her getting over the shock of whatever it was that she had dreamt - until Spike said forcefully "Be quiet, will you? She's trying to tell us something."

They instantly quietened, playing rapt attention to Dawn's words. Not that they made any sense to any of them - it sounded just like the nonsensical babbling that people make when they were asleep.

That is, until Dawn said "_astria porta_". Buffy knew that one - Stargate. Upon hearing that, she instantly took a pen and some paper from Dawn's bedside table and began scribbling down what Dawn said - or at least, what Buffy thought Dawn was saying, as she was barely audible.

Then Spike neatly snatched the pen and paper from Buffy's hands, forestalling the inevitable protest with "I've got better hearing than you do, and besides, I speak a little Latin. I'm more likely to get it right."

After several more moments of muttering and frenzied scribbling, Dawn woke up to see anxious faces peering at her. This pleased Dawn - not the anxious faces, she got enough of those - but the being able to see them part. Of course, she could hardly mention that, so she settled for saying snarkily "What do you want now?"

Buffy let Joyce answer - she was sure her mother would come up with some suitably calming thing to say so as not to alarm the excitable teenager. Besides, she wanted to call Giles and see if he could make anything of what Dawn had been saying. But first, she was going to call Willow and see if her archaeologist beau could translate it. Anyway, if it had anything to do with the Stargate it was bound to be bad.

But Buffy was going to find whichever alien was speaking through her sister and make it wish it had never even heard of Earth.

~*~

"Step away from him, ma'am." an Airman said to Willow politely.

"Why?" Willow responded, much to her own surprise and evidently that of the Airmen too.

"Because he's armed and possibly hostile." the Airman said, trying to keep his voice as respectful as possible, which was difficult when, to his mind, Willow was being unbelievably obtuse.

Willow nodded. "Yes, there is that, but if he had wanted to hurt me I'm sure he would've done so by now. Besides, he's supposed to be here to help us, and he can't really do that from a cell now, can he?" she said reasonably, then wondered why she had. Given that Caelus had tried to kill her, she should probably be happy with him being taken to another cell, or whatever it was that they were going to do with him. So why was she defending him?

"Ma'am, please move aside."

Suddenly, Willow felt anger rushing through her, the same white-hot fury that she'd felt shortly before the black globe had appeared around her hand. "NO!" she shouted, and a wall of darkness erupted from her, washing over the Airmen as though they weren't even there - and, by the time the wall had passed over them, they weren't.

Willow fell to her hands and knees, coughing frantically as she tried to draw a breath that simply wouldn't come.

"Well" said Caelus to himself, having watched the whole thing "That's worrying."


	10. Chapter 10

Hammond, Jolinar and the rest of SG-1 watched the computer monitor to try and ascertain what Caelus had done this time. Unfortunately, they hadn't had much luck on that front - Caelus had been pacing his cell (well limping badly. It was almost enough to make them feel bad that he no longer had a staff to lean on) and then, between one frame and the next, the door was gone without a trace and Caelus was on the floor with his scythe. No matter how many times they watched it in slow-motion, they couldn't find anything else.

So, they turned back to the live footage just in time to see Willow make a half-dozen Airmen disappear. They hadn't even noticed that Willow was gone - there was already two of her in the room. Both Jacks turned to the Willow nearest them and asked "What the hell did you do?" in unison.

Both Willows looked offended and replied "Don't look at me, I didn't do it. Well, technically I did, but it was another me and it wasn't magic."

"So, if that wasn't magic, what was it?" Jolinar asked. She was still unfamiliar with the concept of magic, and what she had just seen certainly looked like something of supernatural origin. No one had technology that could do anything even close to that, at least that she knew of.

"I don't know what it was" Sam replied, feeling odd that she was speaking to someone who was, physically, identical to her "but I'm going to hazard a guess and say that Caelus does. And anyway, we should probably head down there and investigate - it looks like Willow is having some trouble breathing." she finished, gesturing at the computer screen.

~*~

They were right. Caelus did know what Willow had done, but he also knew that Willow shouldn't have been able to do it.

It was something that a few Ancients had developed, a rare consequence of their highly evolved state. No one had ever managed to figure out what the darkness was - it destroyed everything it touched, even force fields, but sensors didn't even register it - but the effect it had on those with the power to wield it was well-documented. They became unstable, both mentally and physically. Their mood swings oscillated, from manic to ecstatic to angry to depressed, seemingly at random.

And, as Willow, who was currently struggling to breathe, testified, the body invariably suffered from using the power. Generally, those who had the power died from it after only a year, two at most. Or wished they had.

But Willow shouldn't have the power in the first place. She had the Ancient gene, but she simply wasn't evolved enough that she should begin manifesting a power like that. Which meant that whatever was happening to her was a side-effect of whatever had split her in the first place.

Then Caelus thought - Willow had the Ancient gene. Sam had been host to Jolinar, and still carried the protein marker in her blood. Caelus didn't know about Jaffa, they'd been created after his imprisonment, but he had to assume that they'd been human at one point. Daniel had been possessed by Willow. Jack also had the Ancient gene, so Caelus assumed that he would also develop an Ancient power.

It seemed to Caelus as though whatever it was that had split SG-1 had split them into their component parts. Which meant that if Spike had also been split, there was a human Spike and a ravening, unstoppable bloodthirsty demon hunting in Sunnydale.

Caelus' thoughts on this were interrupted by the arrival of SG-1 and Janet. Janet, Daniel (who'd recently transformed back from being Willow) and magical Willow stopped by the other Willow who was still struggling to breathe. The rest of SG-1, though, were concentrating on Caelus.

"What did you do?" demanded Jack angrily, regretting Hammond's order not to draw a gun on Caelus.

"Sped up the flow of time around the door until it disintegrated, sped up the flow of time around me so that I could get my scythe without being detected, came back here and watched Willow destroy those men." Caelus answered succinctly.

"How? You've got no technology on you, we checked that. Was it magic?" Jack asked.

"No, just the results of millennia of evolution. You know, like you could suddenly heal people after you'd absorbed the Ancient Repository." Caelus responded, suddenly recalling the event from Jack's memory. Apparently, the Ancients completely destroyed the memories he'd absorbed, merely repressed them.

"How did you make Willow do... whatever it was she did?" Jack questioned further.

Caelus raised an eyebrow in a manner reminiscent of Teal'c. "I didn't make her do anything, and couldn't if I tried. She did that all by herself."

"Do you know what it is that Willow Rosenberg did?" Teal'c queried.

"Well, apparently she has also undergone several millennia of evolution and developed an Ancient power of her own. I'd say that whatever split her split the part of her with the Ancient gene from the part with magic. I'd hazard a guess and say that one of the Colonels will probably have one too. Healing, most likely, you seem to have a proclivity for it." Caelus said, telling them what he'd thought earlier.

Before Jack could question Caelus any further, Daniel said "Umm, Jack? And Jack? If either of you can heal, would you mind healing Willow? She's not getting enough oxygen."

Jack turned to himself and said "Well, there's no harm in trying."

"Indeed." Other-Jack said in a passable imitation of Teal'c. "D'you want to try first?"

"Sure." Jack said, placing his hands somewhat tentatively on Willow's heaving shoulders, and tried to imagine her being well. To his everlasting lack of surprise, nothing happened. "Nothing. Your turn."

Other-Jack also put his hands on Willow's shoulders, but as soon as he touched her white light sprang up around his hands and just as quickly disappeared, as Willow took her first proper breath for some time. "Oh, thank you!" she said fervently, breathing deeply.

Jack didn't answer. He was too busy staring at his hands in wonder.

"Told you so." said Caelus.

~*~

Spike had planned to call Sam to tell her that, yes, something more than usually strange was going on in Sunnydale - namely, some kind of randomly appearing green ball of light and the fact that Dawn was speaking Latin in her sleep.

However, that meant that Spike had to find his phone first. He knew he'd had it when he had first seen the ball of light, but between rushing into the house, knocking over Buffy, and then transcribing Dawn's burst of somniloquence, Spike didn't know where he'd put it.

Spike eventually found it in the Summers' front garden, presumably where he dropped it. Much to his disgust, however, he found that the battery had died on it, and it needed to be recharged. Which meant that he couldn't call Sam and get her to convince her archaeologist friend to translate what Dawn had said.

Which meant that, to Spike's even further disgust, he had to go back into the Summers' house if he wanted to be involved with whatever was going on. And Spike very much wanted to be involved - this was the most interesting thing to happen for months, and besides, it would mean that he would see Sam again, which was always good.

Plus, he could annoy Buffy no end by hanging around.

So Spike went back inside to find Buffy flicking through her phone book, trying to find Daniel's number (why she hadn't saved it on her phone he'd never know). "What are you still doing here, Spike?" Buffy demanded without looking around.

Spike, despite himself, was mildly impressed. He knew he hadn't made a sound walking in here, and Buffy was preoccupied, but she had still known he was there. But Spike would die before admitting that. "I thought I might be able to help, 'cause, you know, I can fight aliens. Or, failing that, I can sit back and watch you fight aliens, cheering them on as they go." he said snidely.

Buffy sighed, but then brightened as she triumphantly held aloft the scrap of paper with Daniel's number on it. "Aha, I knew it was here somewhere! Now, shut up Spike, I've got a call to make."

~*~

"Are you alright?" Daniel asked Willow solicitously.

"I'm fine." Willow answered with a smile. "You seem to be ringing, though."

"What?" said Daniel with a frown, but then realised that his mobile was ringing. He pulled it out in order to turn it off, but stopped when he saw the caller ID. "It's Buffy." he said with some surprise.

"You'd better take it, then. She wouldn't call if it wasn't important." Willow suggested.

Daniel took her advice. "Hi, Buffy... Dawn's speaking _what?_... Are you sure?... No, I'm pretty sure that Caelus isn't behind it, don't ask me why... Sure, I'll translate it if you read it out to me, just give me a second to find a pen and paper." Daniel muttered as he rummaged in his pockets. "Okay, I'm ready."

So, with only a few interruptions to ask her about spelling, Daniel quickly wrote down what it sounded like Dawn had said. It didn't make much sense to him at first glance, but then he wasn't fluent in Ancient.

After they'd finished, Daniel said "Okay, I've got it all. Oh, by the way, how's Spike? Anything happened to him?... Oh, so nothing other than babbling Dawn and a ball of green light. Okay. Thanks, bye." He hung up.

"Okay, Spike's fine, nothing has happened to him. Dawn was hit by some kind of weapon that made her pass out, forget what happened to get for that day, and apparently speak Ancient in her sleep. Oh, and a green ball of light keeps popping up." Daniel said, quickly summarizing the result of Buffy's call.

"Well, that eliminates my theory." Caelus remarked. "Show me what she said."

"Why?" asked Daniel, surprised.

"Well, unless you happen to be fluent in Ancient, I'd think that someone who has spoken that language since infancy would be the best choice of translator." Caelus answered.

Daniel wordlessly passed Caelus the piece of paper, and the Goa'uld quickly skimmed through it.

"It seems to be someone ordering the evacuation of a planet under attack by _Larua_, and also someone ordering that some kind of machine - it doesn't say what it does, but from the context I would assume some kind of defensive system - be activated." Caelus summarized.

"What are _Larua_?" Jack asked.

Caelus shrugged. "I don't know, I've never heard of them. But in English, the closest translation would be 'Wraith'".


	11. Chapter 11

After leaving Caelus with six Airmen pointing guns at him, ready to shoot him if he so much as looked as though he was going to stand up, Hammond, Jolinar and SG-1 adjourned to the Briefing Room.

"Sir, I think we need to go to Sunnydale, investigate what's going on there." Daniel said.

Hammond had expected that - truth be told, he agreed. With the Stargate out of action, there wasn't anything that could be done here. "I agree with that. But the question is, should you bring Caelus with you?"

"With all due respect, Sir, what possible reason could we have to bring a murderous Goa'uld to a town situated above a Hellmouth?" Jack said.

"Well, he is an expert on Ancient technology, and if the Ancients think that whatever's going on is important enough that they had to interfere, then I'd think that you should make use of him." Hammond replied.

"We can't trust him though. And he has tried to kill us." Sam said.

"In the legends of the Tok'ra, it is said that Caelus never told a lie. I believe that if we can make Caelus give us his word not to harm us, then he will abide by it." Jolinar responded.

"And it's true that he never lied to us before, no matter what else he might've done." Daniel mused.

"Yeah, but some of that other stuff he did included nearly killing us and committing genocide on his own race." Willow pointed out.

"He did save my life, though." Daniel said.

"And that of Janet Fraiser, when the vampire Drusilla tried to kill her." Teal'c pointed out.

"But none of that would've happened if he hadn't turned up in the first place!" Jack exclaimed.

"Enough!" Hammond interjected, tired of all the bickering. "I could order you to take him with you, but I won't. I'll leave it up to all of you. All in favour of bringing Caelus with you to Sunnydale, raise your hand."

Jolinar thought that Hammond was being too lenient as a leader - if a leader of the Tok'ra wanted something done, it would be done, no matter the misgivings of the subordinates. Nevertheless, she raised her hand, and saw Daniel raise his too, as well as both Teal'cs and one Willow (which Jolinar thought was odd - wouldn't both Willows, being identical, vote identically?). Neither Sam nor either of the Jacks raised their hand.

Jack sighed. "Looks like we're bringing him with us then."

~*~

"We've decided to take you with us to Sunnydale." Jack said to Caelus.

Caelus still sat on the floor of his cell, eyes closed and idly tapping on his scythe blade. "How kind of you." he murmured.

"Well, actually, I didn't want you to come. I was perfectly happy to leave you here to rot. But I was outvoted." Jack replied.

"In that case, I take back my earlier statement." Caelus relied.

"You'll need to leave your scythe here." Jack said.

"Why?" Caelus said. It sounded as though he genuinely didn't understand.

"Because we don't trust you to have a honking great weapon, especially one which you were willing to break out of prison for." Jack said slowly, as though talking to a child.

"In that case, I hope you enjoy Sunnydale. I'm not going without my scythe."

"You're not going with your scythe."

"Then we seem to be at an impasse."

"Might I offer a compromise?" Daniel suggested diplomatically.

"Go ahead." Caelus said magnanimously. The tone of voice set Jack's teeth on edge.

"Let one of us bring your scythe. That way, you wouldn't have it, but it would be there. Would that be acceptable?" Daniel said.

"Not really. However, if it means that I can leave this prison, I'll go along with it. I've spent too much of my life in a prison already." Caelus replied.

"Fine. Give me the scythe." Jack said through gritted teeth.

"No."

Jack groaned. "What is it now?"

"It's too heavy for a human to carry for extended periods without causing yourself injury. Give it to the Goa'uld." Caelus said.

"It's Tok'ra, actually." Jolinar corrected.

Caelus opened his eyes for the first time, turning them to look at her. "Who's Ra, and what do you have against him?"

Jack, having seen the incredulous look on Jolinar's face (How could Caelus not even have heard of Ra? He'd been Supreme System Lord of the Goa'uld Empire for at least 10,000 years, and had been around long before that. How old did that make Caelus?) and Daniel preparing to give a complete history of the Goa'uld, and said "We can discuss that on the plane. Let's go, people."

"One more thing." Caelus said.

Jack sighed, and looked at Caelus expectantly, waiting for him to continue.

"Given that I am to walk while twisting my leg, I will need support of some kind if you will not allow me my scythe."

"Fine. I'll stop by the infirmary and pick up some crutches." Jack said impatiently. "Can we go now?"

~*~

Eventually, everyone was ready, and one of the Willows called ahead to tell Buffy that they were coming, and that they'd meet at Giles', and that everyone, even Dawn and Spike, should be there.

~*~

Willow, the one with magic, went into Giles' house with Sam, one Jack, one Teal'c and Daniel. She thought that it would probably be for the best if she didn't spring multiple copies of SG-1 on the Scoobies right away.

"Hey Will!" said Buffy, leaping up to give her friend a hug. "Have you all come to help find out what's going on with Dawn and this green ball thingy?"

"Kind of." Willow said uncomfortably. "But there's something we need to show you first."

"Okay..." said Buffy warily. "What is it?"

Sam poked her head out the door and called out "You can come in now, guys."

Then there was an understandable uproar as the duplicates of SG-1 walked in the door. Such was the confusion that no one recognized the scythe in Jolinar's hand. Not even Spike, who was looking from Sam to Jolinar and back again so rapidly that he was actually blurring.

After explanations had been given (or as much explanations as SG-1 even had in the first place) and things had calmed down somewhat, Willow said "There's something else, too."

"Don't tell me there's more of you!" Xander exclaimed jovially.

"Umm, no, not quite." Willow said. Then Caelus limped into the room, leaning heavily on his crutches.

There was complete silence for a moment, before the sudden yammering of several voices speaking shrilly all at once started.

Caelus wasn't paying much attention. He'd just seen something far more interesting than the jabbering humans.

Caelus had spent the last few months as an Ascended being. Before that, he'd spent untold aeons in an extra-dimensional prison. And he'd been written out of the timeline he was originally from, leaving him as nothing more than a memory. So he definitely counted as someone outside reality.

Which explained why, where everyone else saw a young teenage girl, Caelus saw the faintest outline of a girl.

Ascended Ancients have virtually limitless power. There's very little that they can't do, especially when working together. They can, for example, put memories in someone's head, even when the memories don't belong to him.

So Caelus could not only see Dawn for what she was, but also knew what she was.


	12. Chapter 12

Buffy said in a low, dangerous voice "What is that thing doing here?"

"Why does everyone think I'm a thing? I'm a perfectly normal alien." Caelus said mildly.

"Who wanted to kill us!" Spike replied.

"I'm sorry about that." Caelus answered. He sounded genuinely contrite.

"You can't just apologize for something like that." Buffy said.

Willow interrupted before hostilities progressed any further than they already had. "Look, guys, the Ancients descended him so that he could help us. And to be perfectly honest, we have no idea what's going on and we could do with the help we can get."

"Well, if we need help getting killed, I'm sure we'll turn to him." Buffy snarked.

"I never tried to kill you. In fact, you stabbed me." Caelus responded indignantly.

Buffy looked as though she'd like to respond, but reigned herself in by a supreme effort of will. "Okay. You're here. There's nothing I can do about that. Now, if you're going to help, what do you think we should do?"

"Right now?" Caelus replied. "I'd like to speak to her." he said, pointing at Dawn, who flinched.

"Go ahead." Buffy said.

"Privately." Caelus clarified.

"Not a chance." Buffy scoffed.

"Is she non-sentient, or is there some other reason that she can't make her own decisions? Because surely it is her decision whether I talk to her or not." Caelus said.

"No, it's not her choice! She's a _child_-"

Caelus interrupted. "You're all children to me. But if she is capable of making her own decisions, I would allow her to do so. Dawn, may we speak in private?"

Ordinarily, Dawn would've said no. She should've said no - there's absolutely no way she should've allowed herself to be alone in the same room as someone who, during their last meeting, had knocked her unconscious merely because she spoke too much.

But Buffy had put her back to the wall. She'd called her a child, suggested that she was incapable of making her own decisions, showed her up in front of everyone. And besides, judging by Caelus' heavy limp, Dawn suspected that she'd be fine if she kept out of arm's reach. So she nodded cautiously.

"Dawn, you can't-" Buffy began.

Goa'uld generally walked and talked as though they owned the planet on which they stood. Frequently, this was in fact the case.

Up until now, Caelus hadn't been like that. He acted like a normal human being. Now, though, his posture subtly changed. It was impossible to pinpoint any overt difference, but now he looked like the kind of person who, if they gave you an order, you would begin to obey it without thought. And once you _had_ thought about it, you'd still obey him for fear of incurring his disappointment.

"Look, I am here to help, but so far all you primitives have done has gotten in my way. I want to speak to Dawn. Dawn has agreed to speak to me. And yet you still seek to stop this from happening." Caelus said. "I do not care what happens to this planet. But, if you do not allow me to talk to Dawn, then I will withdraw my offer to help. However, I believe that the reason that the Alterrans descended me is because what is happening on this planet has put the universe in grave danger. Your sister is at the centre of this. Indeed, it may well be her death which causes the end of the universe. Now, _can I speak to your sister privately?_" he finished, slipping into the standard Goa'uld voice towards the end.

Buffy fought the impulse to allow Caelus anything he wanted and instead said "Are you threatening my sister?"

"No. I'm not threatening anyone. I'm merely stating what i think will happen, if you prevent me from speaking to Dawn. And no, I will not explain anything to you until after I've spoken to her." Caelus answered in a cold tone.

Buffy blinked. "Fine. Use the kitchen, it's just through there."

"Oh, thank you." said Caelus effusively. Buffy wasn't entirely sure whether he was being sarcastic or not.

After Caelus and Dawn retreated to Giles' kitchen, everyone began talking at once about what Caelus might've meant by talking about the end of the universe, but Spike hissed loudly "Shut up! I'm trying to listen!"

~*~

"Hello. I'm Caelus." Caelus said in getting, extending a hand. He promptly withdrew it when Dawn made no effort to shake it.

"I know who you are, we've met before." Dawn replied tersely, crossing her arms.

Caelus cocked his head. "We have? When?"

"Last time you were in Sunnydale. Remember? You knocked me out for talking too much." Dawn answered, wondering when he'd get to the point.

Caelus frowned. "Those monks don't know me at all."

"What monks?" Dawn queried.

"Ah." Caelus exhaled loudly. "Dawn, there's something I need to show you. You almost certainly won't like it, but you need to see it."

"What is it?" Dawn asked warily. She didn't like the sound of it, whatever it was.

"I can't tell you, only show you." Caelus said.

"Fine." said Dawn in exasperation, although not without some anxiety. After all, who wouldn't feel some trepidation at seeing something that they have been warned they won't like seeing?

"I need physical contact to show you."

"Fine." Dawn repeated. Her friends were within earshot anyway, so if Caelus tried anything all she needed to do was scream. In any case, she suspected that they were eavesdropping on everything.

Caelus somewhat tentatively reached out to touch Dawn's hand. He was concerned that he might pass right through her - it took him a not inconsiderable effort to even see her as something vaguely approaching a human form, so he wasn't sure that he'd be able to touch her. Fortunately, he was.

Caelus wasn't strong enough to time travel. He couldn't physically send someone forward or backwards in time. He could, with a gargantuan effort, make someone else an observer for one of his memories, allow them to see it as vividly as they might see the world around them. Even if it wasn't really one of his memories, but one implanted in him. So that's what he did.

~*~

Arcturus Boôtis Subrufa was nervous. Her project was nearing completion - soon, Zero Point Modules would be obsolete when Arcturus' machine became capable of drawing energy from this universe, rather than a region of subspace.

_Dawn marvelled at the thoughts of the Ancient. She was like a passenger in Arcturus' head, privy to her every thought. She knew about ZPMs, a source of colossal energy far more efficient than anything on Earth. And that soon, Arcturus would have a machine that was even more powerful._

But Arcturus wasn't nervous because she was nearing completion. She was nervous because her machine (which the other scientists working under her had jokingly named Project Arcturus) wasn't ready. Yet, according to long-range sensor scans, a fleet of Wraith ships were heading for the planet, and without her machine to power the planetary weapons system, the entire Dorandan race was doomed.

_Dawn began to wonder why Caelus was showing her this. And also why, at the mention of the Wraith, she had had a sudden image of the Larua that had suddenly come into her hard several hours before. If these Wraith were the Larua, then why had she seen them **before** now?_

However, it would appear that Arcturus had little choice but to organize the evacuation of the planet, keeping with her only as many scientists as she needed to make her machine work. She only hoped that she could evacuate the Dorandans in time - the Wraith were estimated to arrive within an hour.

Everything seemed to be going as planned - while ship after ship carrying the Dorandans left, Arcturus completed her final calculations and made the necessary adjustments to the machine and the weapon.

Then the Wraith arrived, and Arcturus gave the order to turn on her machine for the first time outside of a simulation. Despite the fear that doing so might tear a hole in the fabric of reality, Arcturus couldn't help but feel a frisson of excitement as her machine, her Project, began powering up.

And it worked! Flawlessly! The machine began emitting a golden light - energy readings were off the scales, and they were only operating at half power. Arcturus had just rendered ZPMs obsolete.

But, more importantly, at least right then, the gun was firing bolts of energy that were ripping through the Wraith ships as though they were made of paper. At last, there was a weapon that was capable of ending the threat of the Wraith once and for all!

Of course, Arcturus should've known not to be so hopeful. Things began to go wrong - her machine went into overdrive, producing more and more energy. The weapon automatically siphoned it off to prevent it from going critical, but in doing so it had fire continuously. After destroying the Wraith felt, it fired at the planet. Within minutes the Dorandan home world was a wasteland, and the Wraith hadn't had to do a thing.

But, as worrying as that was, Arcturus was more worried by the exotic particles that were building in the containment field-

Then the field suddenly expanded, enveloping perhaps half a dozen of her scientists. They were dead in seconds from an extreme dose of radiation. They had to get out of here **now**!

Arcturus gathered as many of her remaining scientists around her as she could, and then sought that region of mental calm that allowed her to access the abilities granted to her as a highly evolved Ancient. It was difficult, but eventually she managed it.

Arcturus vanished, along with as many of her scientists as possible, in a flash of red energy. Only to reappear on board a nearby ship that had been kept in reserve in case the scientists had needed to evacuate. Which they did.

But Arcturus hadn't been able to bring all of her scientists with her. Some still remained. Unfortunately, and the decision tore at her and would do for the rest of her life, she couldn't save them. By the time she teleported back, it would be too late. All she would be able to do was die alongside them.

She couldn't save them. She couldn't even save the planet.

But, apparently, one of her scientists could. Save the planet, at least. At least from any more destruction that that which had already been rained down upon it.

Arcturus watcher through the view screen as Vejovis, one the few scientists who still lived, utilized his healing ability to keep death by radiation exposure at bay long enough for him to disconnect her machine. Then he too succumbed.

Arcturus looked solemnly at the devastation she had unwittingly caused. Her life's work was in ruins. She ordered the ship to make the jump to hyperspace, to return to Lantea in disgrace.

~*~

_Dawn wanted to know why Caelus had shown her that. It didn't seem to have any bearing on current events, and it just seemed so sad. He was right. She didn't want to have seen it._

But apparently Caelus wasn't done yet. Dawn suddenly felt herself dragged forward three years, until once again she was a passenger at the back of Arcturus' mind.

Three years. It had been three years since the disaster at Doranda, mitigated only by the utter destruction of a Wraith fleet.

Arcturus looked morosely at her reflection in her bathroom mirror. Today was the day she presented her idea to High Councillor Moros, in the hope that he might accept her proposal and she might expiate her shame.

_Dawn wasn't interested in what Arcturus had to say to this Moros. She was infinitely more interested in what she was seeing in the mirror._

If Dawn was about twenty years older, she'd have been a dead ringer for Arcturus. They had the same eyes, the same hair, the same everything. How could that be? Dawn began to think that maybe Caelus had some reasoning behind showing her all of this after all.

"Good day, High Councillor." Arcturus said to Moros, tentatively. She had always been somewhat wary around the intimidating old man.

"Arcturus. I hear that you have something you wish to show me." Moros replied peremptorily.

Arcturus launched into her theory without preamble. "Sir, as you know, we are losing the war with the Wraith. Unless we come up with a way to offset their vast numerical advantage, we will have no choice to retreat back to Avalon.

I believe I may have found a solution.

Project Arcturus was capable of generating vast amounts of energy, but the generation of exotic particles that was a side effect of this led to unforeseen and fatal consequences.

However, calculations indicate that if we were to utilise the energy given off by the machine to generate a portal that opens to numerous other dimensions simultaneously, then the exotic particles would bleed through it, causing no damage to anyone.

If we combined this technology with our ships, it would allow them to travel anywhere instantaneously, be it in this galaxy or elsewhere. We would merely need to calibrate the portal to the necessary coordinates. I need not explain to you the vast military advantage that this would give us." Arcturus finished.

Moros looked at Arcturus for several agonizingly long seconds. Arcturus fought the impulse to shift from foot to foot like a nervous schoolchild.

Finally, Moros said "You are an exceptionally gifted physicist, Arcturus. I have reviewed the data from before your mishap on Doranda, and there is no way that you could've predicted what happened."

Arcturus blinked. Was Moros complimenting her?

"But the fact of the matter is, your Project is incredibly dangerous. What guarantee is there that this variation will not be as big a disaster, if not even more so, than Doranda?" Moros finished.

"With all due respect, sir, I am a teleporter. I know how dimensional physics works. I am confident that there will be no side-effects, not like last time." Arcturus said, defending her theory passionately.

Moros regarded her for several seconds again. Arcturus would have given almost anything to know what he was thinking.

Slowly, Moros nodded. "We are fighting a war, Arcturus. And we are losing. I do not think that we have the luxury to be cautious. You have my permission to carry out this experiment. Find yourself an uninhabited planet, this time."

"Thank you!" Arcturus gushed excitedly.

"Wait and see if this project is successful. Then I will be the one thanking you." Moros said with a wry smile.

Arcturus thought that maybe Moros wasn't so bad after all.

~*~

It was a year later, and Arcturus was ready, convinced that the new version of her Project would work without a hitch. Despite her confidence, she had ordered every scientist off of the base save for herself - she wouldn't allow anyone to suffer the same fate that had befallen the scientists previously under her charge.

Arcturus prepared to open a portal using her machine, and to send a probe through it to another uninhabited planet on the other side of the galaxy. If this worked, it could revolutionize the war effort.

It worked! Arcturus activated her machine, opened a portal, watched in wonder as the iridescent green ball of energy sparkled tantalizing in mid-air, so very different from the red energy that Arcturus briefly became when she teleported.

The probe went through, and instantly Arcturus was receiving telemetry indicating that it had arrived precisely where it was supposed to. It had worked!

That was as far as Arcturus was willing to go, for the moment. It was only a test run, after all. So she powered down her machine.

Yet the portal stayed open. Arcturus checked her readings - yes, her machine was off, the portal wasn't drawing any power. It shouldn't be there. And yet it was.

Arcturus could see the region around the portal was fading away, becoming indistinct, blurry.

She swore. This universe was bleeding through the portal, bleeding through to the countless other universes that it opened up to, that the exotic energy particles were being fed into. If Arcturus didn't find a way to stop it, the universe would end.

So Arcturus did the only thing she could. She strengthened the force field around the portal, making it into an impenetrable barrier. And it worked. The portal could only affect reality inside the barrier - inside the bottle, as it were.

Arcturus could never allow that portal to escape the barrier. Doing so could cause the end of the universe - perhaps all universes. It would become her sacred duty to guard it, perhaps for the rest of time.

~*~

_Dawn jumped forward several thousand years - she wasn't sure how many - and across space as well. She wasn't sure how she knew that, but she did._

A hooded, robed monk stood in front of Arcturus. "The Abomination comes, Abbot. What do we do?"

Arcturus smiled. She had Ascended and Descended many times in the course of the millennia - not even the other Ancients had dared to intervene with her duty. Despite their policy of non-interference, they would not allow the universe to come to an end - especially not because of something created by one of their own. Although Arcturus suspected that this was because they were more concerned with saving themselves than the lower life forms. Even Ascended beings feel selfish sometimes.

But now, at last, a threat had come, threatening to release the portal into the world.

Or, as the portal had come to be known, the Key.

"You must prepare to cast the spell. You must make a place for her, with the Slayer. If she is to be safe anywhere, it is there." Arcturus answered.

The monk nodded, and gathered his brethren to begin the spell that would implant the memory of Dawn Summers into everyone who would have come into contact her, as the Slayer's sister. Records were fabricated, her room was made, memories created.

Soon, a place in the world, a place for Dawn Summers, was created. But there was, as yet, no Dawn Summers to fill it.

Arcturus turned her attention to the Key's bottle, changing its substance, its form. No longer a barrier of pure energy, it instead gained the shape of a young girl.

Thus Dawn Summers came to be.

~*~

Author's note: in real life, Arcturus is a star in the Boôtis constellation. It was described by Ptolemy as subrufa, or slightly red. Thus Boôtis is her clan name, and Subrufa the descriptive name given to her because she teleports in a burst of red energy.

Vejovis is, amongst other things, a Roman god of healing.

Of course, this creation of the Key is pure speculation, but it sounds good.


	13. Chapter 13

"Oh. I'm just a ball of energy." Dawn murmured to herself. She was probably in shock - hardly surprising, really, given what had just been revealed to her.

"Actually, you're not. You're the barrier protecting the universe from the ball of energy." Caelus corrected.

Dawn couldn't be. She was human. Had to be human. She had all the memories of being human. She wasn't just some energy barrier. She was sentient. She had to be.

Didn't she?

But what could humans do that energy barriers couldn't do? What could Dawn do to prove her humanity?

Humans could bleed. This was a kitchen, after all. There are generally knives in kitchens. Dawn could use one. Just a little scratch, to see if she bled. That would be proof, wouldn't it?

Dawn raced to the knife rack and snatched the biggest, sharpest looking knife she could find, and slashed her arm with it.

Except that she didn't, because Caelus was there, holding both her arms in an iron grip (_How had he moved so fast?_). Dawn was well acquainted with that grip - it wasn't tight, exactly, but Dawn knew that she wasn't strong enough to break free. Buffy had held her in the same grip often enough.

Of course, Dawn could've altered her grip on the knife and slashed Caelus with it instead, but she didn't. She just stood there breathing heavily and trying not to go into hysterics.

Her eyesight was fading again, Dawn could almost feeling herself slipping away, disappearing into nothingness.

Caelus gently took the knife from Dawn's unresisting fingers, reversed it and held the tip against Dawn's throat.

Everything _sharpened_. Dawn could feel the cool metal against her skin - see Caelus' dark blue eyes boring into her own - feel the blood pulsing through her veins - feel the warmth of Caelus' hand where it still gripped her wrist - feel the knife blade jump slightly as blood rushed to her brain.

"Do you think that a mere energy barrier could feel what you do now?" Caelus asked softly, eyes flaring briefly.

Dawn didn't trust herself to speak, and the certainly wasn't about to move her head. So she just stood there, revelling in being alive while a man who might kill her held a knife to her throat.

Then Caelus let go, moving backwards and seating himself in a chair, injured leg stretched out awkwardly in front of him. Dawn realised she'd been holding her breath and took several deep, wonderful breaths. _Oh, wow. That was really something_ Dawn thought.

Caelus tossed the knife idly from hand to hand, twirling it between his fingers. He wasn't even looking at what he was doing, just watching Dawn shiver as adrenaline coursed through her veins.

"You are alive, you know." Caelus remarked. "Whatever else you might have been before, you're alive now."

Dawn nodded slowly, then heaved herself up to sit on a kitchen counter. If you feel alive, think you're alive, have memories of being alive and are surrounded by people who think you're alive, then you must be alive.

"Then why does everything seem to be fading away? My eyesight, I mean, and I'm pretty sure my other senses are going too." Dawn asked in a quavering voice. She cleared her throat, trying to steady herself. _Oh, emotional overload here. How embarrassing!_

"Do you feel like that now?" Caelus asked. Truthfully, she looked far more corporeal than she had earlier. It now took only a small effort for him to see her as an ordinary human.

Dawn thought about it. "No." she answered. "Actually, I feel pretty much like I normally do. No, I feel more emotional than I normally do." she said, then blushed. Too much information.

Caelus contemplated the dilemma for a moment. "Do you know what you were hit with? I'm told you were shot with something, but I don't know what."

"I don't know. Giles said that it looks like a Ferula Gemina, but I wasn't split..." Dawn trailed off. "Oh."

"Precisely." Caelus replied. He'd never heard of a Ferula Gemina, but that didn't mean much. It could've been invented after his imprisonment. A Twin Rod... he'd even been researching something similar, but he'd never been able to make it work. Evidently someone else had. Unfortunately, Caelus doubted the Ancients would allow him to use it now.

"I think that you have been split from the Key, but you still restrain it even though it's no longer contained within you... perhaps it's sufficient that you exist to keep it restrained. But, because it isn't in you, you're weaker, fading away... when this green energy appeared, did you ever see it? Were you conscious at the time?" Caelus theorized.

"No." Dawn answered. "In fact, I had a gap in my memory last time it appeared..."

"So, now, you're you more than you're the Key. That's why you feel like yourself. But, most of the time since you were hit by the Ferula, you're sort of a blend between the two. Which is why you feel faded, but the Key isn't ending the universe. But sometimes the Key breaks free..." Caelus said.

Dawn shuddered. So now she was sporadically changing into a ball of energy capable of destroying the entire universe. Great.

Then something occurred to her. "But if I was hit by the Ferula Gemina, why were SG-1 and Willow split too?" Dawn asked.

"I don't know..." said Caelus, ponderously. "Ah! They were using the Stargate when you were hit, and the Key links all dimensions together, including the one which wormholes pass through! So, they became linked to you and split as well." he exclaimed.

Then he frowned. "Which is really bad." Caelus muttered darkly.

Dawn examined that carefully. Given that her emotions currently dictated that she put on a shocked voice and exclaimed "Why?" dramatically, she thought it was possible that her emotions must be just a bit heightened. And she didn't want to embarrass herself by being too effusive.

So she settled for looking mildly surprised and asking "Why?" in as normal a voice as she could. It was the best that Dawn could manage.

"Because when Willow was split into two, one half gained an Ancient power. An extremely dangerous Ancient power which almost always results in either going insane and killing people, or dying from an incurable form of cancer. And if she dies, then everyone else she's linked with will die too. Including you. And if you die, the Key will be unfettered, and it's the end of the universe..." Caelus said sombrely.

"Oh." said Dawn. "How do we stop that?"

Caelus shrugged eloquently. "We'd have to unlink you somehow. Return you back to your undivided state. Unfortunately, without looking at the Ferula Gemina, I don't have a clue how we could manage that."

"You mean you can't just show us how to reverse it, like you showed me how I was... how the Key was made?" Dawn questioned.

Caelus smiled faintly. "Dawn, those memories were shoved into my head by the Alterrans. They're not mine, and they're all that they saw fit to give me. Even sharing them with you used so much energy that I almost passed out - I'm not going to be doing that again anytime soon."

"So we need to get the Ferula." Dawn said decisively, striding for the door.

"Dawn, wait." said Caelus calmly. Dawn stopped instantly, turning back to see the Goa'uld still twirling the knife between his fingers. What was it now?

"You need to decide what you're going to tell your family." Caelus pointed out.

Oh. Right. Dawn didn't particularly want to tell everyone that she was something built ten thousand years ago to contain a portal of mass destruction. That would be crazy, even if was true. "I can't tell them." Dawn said.

"They'll find out eventually."

"How?"

"Something - the Abomination, whatever that is - is looking for you. I mean the Key. Sooner or later, it'll figure out that you are the Key, and so will your friends." Caelus answered.

"Right. Yes. But I still can't tell them. They just think of me as... Dawn. As annoying as that frequently is, I'd rather they think of me as that than the Key." Dawn said. Then she caught Caelus looking at her strangely. "What?" she demanded.

"I envy you, you know. You exist. Even if your memories are fabricated, you still exist." Caelus said sadly. "But everything I built, everything I ever did, has been wiped out. Now I'm just a legend, and people haven't even got that right. You're more real than I am. And you're taking it better than I did, too. I was going to commit genocide when I found out. You're taking it surprisingly calmly."

Dawn sighed heavily. "I'm really, really not. But if I don't think about it, if I preoccupy myself, maybe it'll just be normal."

"Well, if you want to talk about existential crises, I'll be around for a while." Caelus said.

Dawn grinned widely. "Thank you."

"No problem." Caelus replied, clumsily getting to his feet. "Now let's go and deceive your family."


	14. Chapter 14

When Caelus and Dawn left the room, they were immediately accosted by Buffy, who said "What were you talking about?"

Dawn blinked. She had forgotten, after her vision of the past that everyone was waiting just outside the door. She had forgotten that she had expected them to be eavesdropping. How was it possible that Spike, who had the keenest hearing of anyone Dawn had ever met, hadn't overheard them? They'd hardly been speaking quietly. "You mean you weren't eavesdropping?"

"I tried." Spike supplied. "But you were speaking Ancient too quickly and too quietly for me to catch enough to tell Daniel so he could translate it."

"But I wasn't speaking Ancient." said Dawn, bemused. She turned to Caelus. "I'm not speaking Ancient, am I?"

"Not now, no. You were earlier, though. Quite well, too." Caelus replied.

"Enough of that." Buffy snapped. "What were you saying to my sister? And don't lie to me, now."

"I don't lie." Caelus said. Dawn froze. He had said that he wouldn't tell them about her being the Key! Surely he wouldn't go back on that.

Caelus looked pointedly at Jolinar (Dawn assumed that that was because, as a Goa'uld, Jolinar was the only one that Caelus could readily identify as one of the offshoots created by the Ferula) and said "We talked about what it means to be alive. What it means to exist. Whether something created can truly be said to be alive, to be human." he answered.

Dawn was lost in amazement. Caelus hadn't lied, that had been what they had talked about, but he had implied that it had been about the others created by the Ferula, rather than her being the Key. Dawn decided that she would subject everything Caelus said to minute scrutiny in case he tried to pull something like that on her.

"So you didn't talk about what was causing all of this?" Sam said quizzically. Nothing that Caelus had said seemed to be anything that he couldn't have said to Dawn in front of everyone else.

"We did." Caelus nodded. "I think it might be possible that the Ferula Gemina drew the necessary matter to create your duplicates from another dimension - that which the wormholes created by the _astria porta_ cut through. So when it hit Dawn whilst the Stargate was active, it duplicated you rather than her. That's what might have happened, anyway. The theory might be entirely wrong."

Sam digested that. It made sense. Matter couldn't simply be created - even if conjured by magic, the energy had to come from somewhere. A different dimension was as plausible a source as any. "But that doesn't explain all that end of the universe stuff you were talking about earlier."

"Drawing power from other dimensions is incredibly dangerous." Caelus said. Dawn fought the urge to smile - he had probably only discovered that just now from the memories the other Ancients had put in his head. "If you don't find a way to reverse the effect of the Ferula, then I believe that this universe may well bleed through into other dimensions, causing this one to end."

Buffy frowned. "Giles, I thought you said that the thing that shot Dawn wasn't a Fairy Gemini, or whatever."

Giles rolled his eyes. He wished (although of course he'd never wish out loud) that, just once, Buffy would get the name of something right. "Ferula Gemina, Buffy. It's called a Ferula Gemina. And I only said that, despite looking like one, it didn't act as a Ferula Gemina was supposed to. But, if Caelus is right, then the Ferula acted exactly as it was supposed to - just not on its intended target."

"Do you know how to reverse it?" Buffy asked.

Giles shrugged. "Not off the top of my head, no. But I can probably find out." he replied.

"Guys?" said one of the Jacks. "I know I'm hardly an expert on this kind of thing, but if the Fairy thingy acted on the wrong people, what guarantee is there that the normal way to reverse it would work?"

Giles hadn't thought of that - but then, he didn't know what the normal way to reverse the Ferula was anyway. It might or might not work. He just didn't know enough.

"May I see it?" Caelus asked.

"Why?" asked Buffy suspiciously, reluctant to allow Caelus near any kind of technology.

"The name is Alterran. There is every chance that one of my people built that device, which would perhaps explain why they descended me." Caelus replied. "Maybe I can find some way to reverse it, if Giles' way doesn't work."

As much as Sam shared Buffy's reluctance to allow Caelus near the Ferula, he had a point. Besides, if all it did was make twins of people, he could hardly use it to kill anyone. "It's worth a shot, isn't it?" she suggested.

Buffy deliberated for a moment, then went and got the Ferula. "Here." she said abruptly, tossing the device to Caelus who easily snatched it out of the air.

Then Caelus laughed as he examined the Ferula. He knew who had made the device. They'd signed it.

"What's so funny?" said Buffy warily, ready to attack Caelus should he do anything threatening.

"I know who made this." Caelus replied. "You see this ornate sun embossed on the side? That's the symbol of Sol."

As Caelus said that, the dark, metallic skin of the Ferula turned transparent, revealing the sparking network of wires and intricate machinery that made the device work. Sol's name must have been a pass code of some kind to allow access to the machine.

To any of the humans, even Sam, the workings of the Ferula would've proved incomprehensible, even after years of study. The technology that made it was simply that advanced.

But Caelus recognized it. It was similar to some technology that he had been working on, back before he had been imprisoned.

In essence, what the Ferula did was cause every cell of the target to duplicate. However, as this would cause the target to die instantly, it also shoved the duplicated cells out of the original body, creating a clone.

However, to create an exact duplicate, identical down to the very last detail, would cause a variation of entropic cascade failure causing both the duplicate and the original to die. Fortunately, there was a way around that - make sure that they weren't identical.

That part, however, gave Caelus some trouble, just as it had given him trouble all those years ago. What's more, he couldn't tell how Sol had gotten around it with this device - none of the machinery that he could see could possibly account for that effect. Furthermore, the Ferula wouldn't have split Dawn into the Key and the Key's barrier, not if it worked the way that Caelus thought that it did.

Which meant only one thing. The Ferula wasn't entirely mundane in origin. Sol had to have used magic to get the effect required - or, because the Sol Caelus knew didn't have magic, Sol had to have gotten someone else to cast a spell on the Ferula.

So they needed to recombine the people created by the Ferula and their originals in order to stop the Key from becoming free. However, to do that, it would be necessary to make the pairs identical, however briefly. At least in a couple of cases.

Fortunately, for Dawn, that wouldn't be a problem. She was both the Key and the barrier. All that would be needed to make sure that Dawn didn't revert to being just the unfettered Key would be to return everyone else to normal.

Similarly, Jolinar and Sam were, physically, identical. Although she had the thoughts, memories and habits of the Tok'ra, Jolinar didn't actually have a symbiote. She was just the mental aspect of the symbiote. Upon reversing the Ferula, Jolinar would be reabsorbed by Sam. The same was true of Teal'c, although it was the human rather than Jaffa aspect that would be reabsorbed.

Furthermore, the echo of Willow that remained in Daniel was nothing more than a remnant of her magic left over from her possession, and that was fading rapidly. Even now, Daniel was turning into Willow less and less frequently, and for shorter intervals. Sooner or later, the remnant would fade away forever, and Daniel would be just Daniel. There was nothing that needed to be done about him.

However, Jack and Willow were problems, because they weren't exact duplicates of the originals. Given that one set had the Ancient gene, and the other didn't, they were different at a genetic level.

Fortunately, Caelus was a brilliant geneticist. If there was anyone who could completely eradicate the Ancient gene from Jack and Willow, thus rendering them identical to their counterparts, before Willow died from her Ancient power, it was Caelus.

All he had to do was convince everyone else to let him near some genetics equipment.

All of that passed through Caelus' head in the space of a few seconds. By then, Buffy had seen the way the Ferula had changed, and she asked "What happened? What did you do? What is it?"

Caelus sighed. "I can't tell you how it works. Its Ancient technology - I'd be punished if I told you how it worked - but I can tell you what it does." and he did, along with the thought processes he had had at the same time. The only part he left out was the part about Dawn being the Key.

"You've got to be kidding me!" said Willow, incredulously. "No way am I going to let you mess around with my genes. Last time we met, you controlled me because of my genes. You stay well away from them, do you hear!"

The other Willow, the one without magic, took the opposite view. "Look, Caelus said I'm dying, because of the power that comes with the Ancient gene. So, I'd really rather not die. Especially if my dying is going to cause the end of the world. So, if Caelus can cut the gene out of me and save my life, I'm inclined to let him."

Before either of the Jacks said anything to support the first Willow's view, Dawn interjected. "Look, Caelus told me that if Willow died, we'd all die too. And then the universe would end. So either you trust that he knows what he's talking about, or you think he's bluffing and ignore him. What are you going to do?" she said to Jack.

_When he comes, trust him. He knows what he is talking about._ The words echoed around in Jack's - in both of the Jacks' heads. Where had he heard that?

Then Jack remembered. Drusilla had said that to him, in that crazy dream he had had just after that had killed Adam. He hadn't thought anything of it at the time - he'd been sure he was dreaming - but, then again, he had been told that Drusilla was a psychic. Perhaps she had been warning him of this very thing.

Jack was naturally a sceptic, but when the fate of the universe was in his hands, he could hardly afford to doubt. "Fine. You can do it." he said gruffly. "But where are you going to get the equipment from?"

"Actually, there's a very advanced lab quite close to here." Xander piped up. Everyone looked at him, bemused. This was Sunnydale. There wasn't anything advanced in Sunnydale, except maybe the death toll.

"You know, the Initiative?" Xander continued.

"But that's sealed off." Jack replied.

"Well, you'd better unseal it, then."


	15. Chapter 15

As it turned out, it was surprisingly easy to convince the necessary people to reopen the Initiative. Given that a representative of the most advanced race that the citizens of Earth knew of had told them that it was necessary in order to save the entire universe, they didn't feel that it was justifiable to deny him access. They couldn't take the risk. Even if he wasn't exactly the most reliable source.

Buffy and most of SG-1 headed down to the Initiative, making sure that Caelus didn't try anything on the way there. Buffy called Riley and told him to meet the group there.

Of SG-1, only Sam didn't go. She wanted to talk to Spike, because she hadn't seen him in months. And, after all, he had just met someone who was physically her twin. She suspected that Spike probably wanted to talk to her about that.

So Sam drew Spike off a little way away from the others.

"She's not you, is she?" Spike asked curiously. "Jolinar, I mean. She looks like you, but she stands differently. I don't think I'd ever manage to mix you up."

"How could you tell?" Sam responded. After all, Jolinar had fooled the rest of SG-1, albeit briefly, and she worked with them in a far closer capacity than she ever had with Spike.

"It's in the way you stand. You're a soldier. Even if I met you when you weren't in uniform, I could tell that you were a soldier. You stand - I dunno, more upright, poised, I suppose. It's hard to pinpoint. But Jolinar isn't a soldier. She's a spy, isn't she?"

Sam tried to remember what Spike knew about Jolinar. She was pretty sure that he didn't know all that much. He certainly didn't know that her primary work had been to infiltrate the ranks of the Goa'uld. "Yes, she is. Or was, I suppose. But how could you possibly tell?"

"Again, it's because of the way she stands. Her posture - ah, I can't explain it, but she walks as though she doesn't want to be noticed. She does it quite well, too. And you don't walk like that." Spike replied.

"D'you know, I think you'd probably make a pretty good spy yourself. You certainly seem to notice a lot." Sam said, only half joking.

"Only things that interest me. Most of the time I don't bother to look too hard at things. I just rush in blindly." Spike said truthfully.

"I'm one of the things that interests you, am I?" Sam said softly.

"Well, yes. Haven't you figured that out by now?" Spike replied gently, intently looking at Sam to see how she took the news. He knew that Sam was attracted to him on some level (although he couldn't imagine why) but he was perfectly prepared for her to run for the hills rather than stick around in a relationship with a vampire.

Although he'd really, really like it if she did stick around.

Sam, for her part, was thinking _Don't blush don't blush don't blush. C'mon Sam, you're not a schoolgirl._

"Ah. I've made you uncomfortable." Spike said quietly. Sam thought she caught a hint of something - disappointment? - in his voice.

"No, you haven't. Well, actually you have, but... oh, Spike, why'd you have to put me on the spot like that? You know I like you. Argh, I'm blushing now, aren't I?" Sam babbled.

"Just a little." Spike assured, eyes glinting with amusement. And happiness too, Sam thought. "It's not really all that noticeable. Unless you're me, of course."

"That's alright for you to say." Sam grumbled. "You don't blush!"

Sam regretted saying that pretty much instantly. Spike was already uncomfortable being a vampire, at least around her. He really didn't need her needling him about it.

"No, you're quite right." Spike said amiably. "I don't."

Sam wasn't to know that the reason that Spike didn't take offense, didn't feel as though she still saw him as nothing but a vampire and therefore subhuman, was because she'd instantly looked contrite. She'd just been bantering with him as she would a friend. Sam hadn't meant anything by her gentle dig, Spike knew.

~*~

It didn't take very long to input all the various codes that would unseal the many layers of doors that sealed off the Initiative from the outside world. Not even with Riley adamantly protesting that reopening the Initiative was a very bad idea.

Soon, the group was inside, and the lights flickered on. The Initiative had its own independent generator, separate from the Sunnydale electricity grid, and apparently motion sensors too. Which was good.

Buffy saw the large open space where she had once seen Dr Angleman operating on a pair of big green demons that Walsh had later sent to kill her. And which she had seen once again when they returned to break Riley out of the infirmary, where Spike had created a diversion and taken a blast from a stun gun so that they could escape.

Unfortunately, it wasn't a genetics lab, and therefore useless to them. Buffy had only ever spent a short time in the Initiative, and didn't really know her way around. And Riley had been a soldier, so while he was more familiar than Buffy about the general layout of the base, he still didn't necessarily know where the genetics lab might be. Although he was pretty certain that there was one - after all, what facility built to examine vampires and demons wouldn't have a lab capable of examining their genes?

However, Adam had somehow managed to encrypt every file pertaining to the Initiative, and, unbeknownst to the Scoobies and SG-1, whilst Adam had come to collect Riley from them he had also released every demon and vampire housed in the Initiative's cells. The death count had been massive, and only a few soldiers had survived. As a result, no one knew what the Initiative had done or not done, or where they had done it. So they had no choice but to explore the vast labyrinthine facility and hope that the lab they wanted was signposted, and hadn't been wrecked by the widespread fighting that had preceded the facility's shutdown.

It took a while, but they found it eventually. Even better, it was far enough from the cells that the fighting hadn't reached it, so it was unspoiled.

Unfortunately, during the clean-up that had followed the fight, everything had been shut away in locked cabinets which had, for added security, been chained shut. And no one had the key.

Fortunately, this problem was easily solved. They were strong chains, strong enough to fend off an enraged vampire, but Caelus was stronger than a vampire. So he merely ripped the chains from the cabinets and tossed them away.

Shortly after doing so, Caelus thought that it probably wasn't the most prudent thing he'd ever done. He wanted SG-1 and the Scoobies to trust him, at least a little. And it was hard to trust someone after such a display of physical prowess, even if Jolinar or Buffy could've matched it.

"What?" Caelus said casually. "I may be walking with a limp, but that doesn't mean that I'm not strong. I am still a Goa'uld, after all."

"Right." said Buffy slowly, resolving to keep an eye on Caelus. Well, a closer eye than she had already been planning to keep.

Caelus also yanked open the locked cabinets, not particularly caring if he damaged them - it was the contents he was after - and snorted in disgust when he saw what was in them.

"What? What is it?" asked magicless Willow, alarmed. If the equipment was wrong, or damaged somehow, then she would die, leading to the end of the universe.

"I knew you were primitives, but this is ridiculous, really." Caelus said derisively. "It'll take me _days_ to come up with a way to destroy your Ancient gene with this."

"It'll take you... days." magic Willow said flatly. "To eliminate an entire gene from every part of our - her body. Something which human science can't do, at all, will take you days."

"Well, if I had my old equipment I could do it five minutes. I told you, I'm a geneticist. I know what I'm doing, more than you primitives do." Caelus said absently, as he was already taking things out from the cabinets. "Far more than you primitives do. This belongs in a museum."

"We don't show up on scans." Daniel warned. "You'll have to look at their genes physically."

"Really. Maybe it'll take me a week, then. Try not to die until then, alright?" Caelus said, preoccupied.

Caelus had run into a problem. The equipment here was so far below the standard that he was familiar with that he was having to remember its functions from Ancient museums, and even those had been more advanced than these human machines. And, given that none of the people whose memories were buried in his head knew anything about genetics, they couldn't help him either.

Fortunately, although the chemicals had different names than the Ancient ones Caelus knew, someone had considerately decided to draw the chemical structure on the labels, so he could figure it out from there.

But Caelus was confident that he could figure out how things worked and make a working solution in about a week.

Maybe a week and a half. Two weeks, at the most. He just hoped that Willow wouldn't die before then.


	16. Chapter 16

After everyone else had left, Buffy stayed in the genetics lab to keep watch over Caelus. As what he was doing would directly affect her best friend, and (if he was telling the truth) indirectly the fate of the universe, Buffy thought it would be for the best if she was the one to watch him.

Not that it was very interesting. Buffy watched as Caelus limped around the lab, adding things together, turning machines on and off, and looking at things through microscopes (the blood samples he'd taken from Willow and Jack, presumably). From the way Caelus bemusedly turned one of the whirly things that you put test tubes in (Buffy didn't know what they were called) on and off repeatedly before finally putting a test tube in it, Buffy wondered if he even knew what he was doing after all.

Eventually, Buffy got bored just sitting and watching Caelus and making sure he never went too close to his scythe. She wasn't one for staying still in any case, so it only took her about half an hour to get to that stage.

Buffy supposed that she could ask him what he was doing, but she doubted he'd answer. Ancients weren't supposed to share technology, and she guessed that included genetics.

So, just to start a conversation, Buffy asked "Just how old are you, anyway? I mean, if you're entire race is called the Ancients, how old are you, specifically?"

For a while, Buffy didn't think that Caelus was going to answer. Eventually, he said "I don't know, really. In my prison... time didn't really mean anything. I was in there for an eternity, possibly. And before that, when I was blended with three species, I didn't age anyway, so there was no need to keep track of my age. So I don't know how old I am."

Buffy had met some pretty old vampires in her time. Both Spike and Angel knew their ages, and they'd been dead for over a century - or two centuries, in Angel's case. Admittedly, Buffy had never had a chance to ask the Master or Kakistos how old they were, but Giles' research had put Kakistos in Ancient Greece, making him around 3000.

How much older did you have to be before you completely lost count?

"Guess, then." Buffy suggested. "You can at least figure out how old you were before you went to prison."

"If this were my timeline, I could. But things are different here. The Goa'uld began exploring the galaxy much later here, for one thing, and they seem to have always been hostile. So, no, I can't really work out how old I am, not without extensive research. Suffice to say, I'm hopefully the oldest person you'll ever meet." Caelus replied.

"Why hopefully?" Buffy asked curiously.

"Because the people I know for sure are older than me aren't people you'd ever want to meet." Caelus answered with a tone of finality. Buffy could tell that he wasn't going to say anything else. And, honestly, Buffy wasn't too interested in hearing the Ancient (both literal and the name of the species) history of someone who had tried to kill her.

At that moment, Spike walked in.

"How's work progressing?" he asked, jauntily.

Before Caelus could reply, Buffy scowled and said "Watch him, will you? And don't let him near his scythe." and left. She didn't want to deal with Spike, not on top of everything else.

"Thought you might like a break from Little Miss Slayer." Spike said pleasantly.

Caelus stared at him, wide-eyed. "You're being friendly." he said incredulously. "No one's friendly to me."

"Way I see it" Spike explained "you're trying to help. So it would be hypocritical of me to treat you as though you weren't."

"That's a rather... enlightened view." Caelus replied.

"But I'll rip out your tongue and feed it to you if you try any funny business." Spike warned.

"Of course."

"Just so we're clear."

"Got it."

Spike said "Besides, I know what it's like, trying to help and being treated like dirt for doing it." he said, then was surprised at himself for doing so. It wasn't like Spike to talk about emotional matters to a stranger who had tried to kill him. Or talk about them to anyone, come to think about it. Having Sam turn up must've gotten to him more than he would admit.

To hide his confusion, Spike lit a cigarette.

Which Caelus promptly snatched from his fingers, saying "No smoking."

However, his edict was quickly undermined when Caelus put the cigarette in his mouth and took a long drag.

Spike raised an eyebrow. "What happened to no smoking?" he asked.

"What?" Caelus replied absently. Then he seemed to realise what he was doing. "Oh, nothing's at a stage that would be damaged by a bit of smoke. It's alright to smoke now. Just not all the time." He took another puff.

"So you Ancients had ciggies, did you? Or was it the Goa'uld?" Spike asked.

"No. Neither. We preferred not to damage our health with things like this." Caelus answered.

"Your loss." Spike muttered under his breath as he lit another. Then, in a louder voice, he said "What I meant was, you seem to know how to smoke. Most people cough and splutter a bit, the first time."

Spike didn't add that Caelus smoked like Drusilla used to. Before she'd given up (six weeks before they were first declared to be unhealthy) Dru had smoked cigarettes quickly, with a passion as though she was in a rush to get to the next one. It had always rather annoyed Spike, if he were honest. He had always thought they should be savoured.

"Do they?" Caelus mused. "I guess that's another memory popping up."

"You what?" Spike said, not understanding.

"You know last time we met? I absorbed your memories, you and the others. When they descended me, the Alterrans just repressed those memories. They pop up every now and then." Caelus answered.

"Huh." Spike said noncommittally. It looked like Caelus really was smoking like Dru. "Anyway, I guess being a Goa'uld means that you aren't going get the bad side effects of smoking." he added

"Don't think less of me for not remembering what those are." Caelus said. "But probably not, no."

"So, you made vampires?" Spike said, changing the subject. This one reminded him too much of Drusilla, and he didn't want to think about her. Not with Sam in the picture. Besides, she had seemed perfectly happy with Cole.

"In my own timeline, yes." Caelus said, stubbing his cigarette butt into a sink and walking away the ash. "I don't know how you came about here. Perhaps you evolved."

"So why'd you make a bunch of bloodthirsty soulless monsters who can't go out in the sun? And why did you put a demon in us?" Spike asked. "Not that I'm complaining, you understand. I wouldn't be here if you hadn't. No wait, you didn't make us in this timeline. So scratch that last part."

"What's a soul?" Caelus asked bemused.

Spike stared for a second. How could anyone not know what a soul was? Okay, perhaps he could understand not knowing exactly what one was - not even he knew all the details - but surely even a child would know at least a little bit? "A soul... a soul is the part of you that allows you to distinguish between right or wrong. The moral part of you."

"A conscience?" Caelus asked. "Because I didn't make anyone without that. Sure, vampires might not always have been good people, but they knew the difference between right and wrong."

"Yes, it's like a conscience, but that's not _all_ it is. It's also the part that makes you. Take resurrection, for example. Most any old witch can raise a body, but without a soul, it's just a body. A puppet. Then there's zombies, which are basically the same. Without a soul, they're not themselves. They're not even a person, not really." Spike explained. Then he blinked, as he processed what Caelus had said. "Wait, what? Vampires had morals back in your day?"

"Well, yes. Of course." Caelus replied absently as he was still running through what Spike had said. "But hold on a moment. If you don't have a soul, then why are you not some shambling corpse?"

"That'll be the demon." Spike answered, showing his game face.

"Spike? That's not a demon. That's just your face. I made you - made vampires like that so they could hide better." Caelus said.

"No." Spike declared forcefully. "Maybe in your timeline vamps weren't demons. We are here. That's why we get driven off by crosses and holy water."

"Crosses? As in two intersecting lines?" said a baffled Caelus. "Do demons really get driven off by those?"

"Well, no." Spike admitted. "Just vampires."

"So... why exactly did you think you were a soulless demon?" Caelus asked.

"Because the things I've done - the things vampires do - people with a soul don't things like that." Spike said. Then, for the sake of veracity, he added "Well, most don't. But all vampires do."

"Would I be right in saying that the fact that vampires, as a species, are entirely immoral is the reason that you think you're a soulless demon?" Caelus asked.

Spike thought about it for a few moments. Then he thought about it for a few more. Eventually, he said "Yeah. I guess so."

For a split second, Spike could've sworn that Caelus looked guilty, before his face resumed its normal inscrutable expression. Before Spike could say anything, Jolinar walked in.

Spike didn't particularly want to talk to Jolinar. Given that she was someone who looked just like Sam, but wasn't, it was just too weird. Besides, he wanted to go and think about what Caelus had just said. So he left. He guessed that Jolinar probably wanted to talk about Goa'uld stuff, anyway, and doubted that she would want Spike around.

"What can I do for you?" Caelus asked, limping around the room as he resumed his work.

For a moment, Jolinar hesitated, but then she said what she had come to say. "Am I dead?"

Caelus fought the urge to roll his eyes. _Not another existential crisis, surely? First Dawn, then I think I might've forced Spike into one, and now this? What's going on here?_ he thought, but what he said was "In my experience, dead people generally don't walk and talk like you do. If you can wonder whether you're alive, it's a fair indication that you are."

Jolinar waved his argument aside. "No, I mean, I _died_. I remember it. But now, here, I'm alive again. I think. But me - my symbiote, it's not in this body. I'm not actually here. So am I alive?"

"To the best of my knowledge, you're the thoughts, feelings and memories of Jolinar, but without the actual symbiote. But yes, you're alive." Caelus replied.

Jolinar nodded sharply. "Right. Okay. Got it." _Oh, I miss Martouf._

Buffy, having decided that it was about time that she revisited Caelus, even if Spike was around, chose that moment to walk into the room.

"Ah, Buffy!" Caelus said brightly. "I was wondering whether you would let me talk to Dawn."

"What? Why?" Buffy asked, suspicious.

"Well, if I could tell you, I wouldn't need to talk to Dawn, would I?" Caelus said reasonably.

Buffy, keen to keep interaction between her sister and the untrustworthy alien as little as possible, decided to lie. "She's at school."

"Don't be ridiculous, of course she isn't." Caelus said, not fooled. "You wouldn't send Dawn to school, not with her eyesight playing up."

"_What?_" Buffy said in a dangerous tone of voice. If he had done anything to Dawn, she _would_ kill him.

"Ah. She didn't tell you about that." Caelus said, uncomfortably aware that he was coming close to revealing Dawn's secret. "It's a side effect of the Ferula. Her eyesight comes and goes."

"I thought that that thing was just supposed to split people, and it didn't work on Dawn." Buffy said.

"Yes. But... it hit Dawn while a Stargate was open. It wouldn't just have no side effects. All in all, it having erratic eyesight isn't the worst side effect she could have." Caelus said. _If only that was the only side effect._

Buffy schemes her mind. She fished out her cell and called Dawn. "Hey, Dawn. Caelus wants to speak to you. No, I don't know what it's about. But after that, we're going to have words about your eyesight, young lady." Then she tossed the phone to Caelus.

"_You told her?_" Dawn exclaimed. "_You said you wouldn't!_"

Caelus could hardly tell Dawn that he hasn't told Buffy about her being the Key, not with Buffy and Jolinar listening to every word. So he decided to go along and say what he had been planning on saying in any case. "So, Dawn, for the last few minutes I've been having these stomach aches, and my stomach's been making this rumbling noise."

"_Yes?_" Dawn said warily.

"So I was wondering which Earth disease I've picked up, and how do I treat it?"

"_You're kidding, right?_" Dawn said incredulously. "_No, of course you aren't. Look, you aren't sick, you dummy. You just need to eat something._"

"Eat... something." Caelus said doubtfully.

"_Yeah. You know, like food. You put it in your mouth, chew it, and swallow. Food. Nourishment. Come on, don't tell me you've never eaten before._"

"I haven't eaten for a very, very long time." Caelus said slowly. "Truthfully, I think I've forgotten how."

"_Fine. I'll pop into the kitchen, see what we've got, and bring you something. Then I'll show you how to eat, its not hard. 'kay?_" Dawn said. Then she hung up.

~*~

Dawn had been starting to feel less exist-y when Caelus had called. She figured that the shock he'd given her by holding a knife to her throat was wearing off, and with it her grip on not-being-the-Key. She figure that maybe going and seeing him would put an end to that.

Joyce was in the kitchen when Dawn went in. She looked at her daughter in shock, and exclaimed "Who are you? What are you doing in my house? _Who are you?_"


	17. Chapter 17

Dawn watched, helpless, as her mother crumpled into a heap on the floor.

The mother who didn't know who she was.

Dawn could feel herself slipping away, could feel herself becoming more and more unreal with every passing second. She tried to fight it, tried to hold on, but it wasn't working. _My mom doesn't know who I am._

Dawn tried to step forward, to check to see whether Joyce was alright. She didn't manage it.

Instead, Dawn had the sensation of stepping sideways. Not physically, not in her body. But dimensionally.

Suddenly, Dawn could see glimpses of _everything_. Worlds beyond counting. Heavens, Hells, nearly-Earths and not-Earths. She could see them all at once.

Dawn realised, just as she had realised the last time she had reverted to being the Key, that the human mind couldn't possibly contain such knowledge. But that was alright, because just then she wasn't human. Should she become Dawn again, then she would forget everything she had seen, everything she had done as the Key.

But right now, she needed to warn someone, tell them that Joyce was in trouble. Dawn didn't know how long it would be before she stopped being the Key and became Dawn again.

Unfortunately, Dawn didn't want to reveal to anyone that she was the Key. It was difficult enough communicating in any case (contacting Sam had been a freak chance, she wasn't sure she could do it again. She wasn't entirely sure how she had done it in the first place.) so her only option was to appear on front of someone and give communicating a go.

Then again, Dawn could visit Caelus. He knew what she was. He would understand what it meant, if she appeared before him in as this ball of energy. After that, she could go away, go and hover over the ocean somewhere and hope that nothing came through the dimensional rifts she inadvertently opened. And that she stabilized soon.

~*~

Buffy tsked exasperatedly when Caelus told her that Dawn had hung up. She had wanted to talk to her sister about the fact that her eyesight was failing and she hadn't told Buffy about it.

This concern was overshadowed when the glowing ball of green energy appeared in the centre of the lab.

~*~

Dawn could hear everything. Buffy's heartbeat speeding up as she appeared. Jolinar's, too, although not nearly as much. And Caelus', remaining steady, albeit muffled by the miniature heartbeat of his symbiote.

Dawn heard Buffy call for everyone to get out. Dawn heard her footsteps as she did just that, followed by Jolinar's.

But quieter than that, meant for her alone, she heard Caelus mutter "Stop it, Dawn. Hold on. Be human."

Dawn watched his lips as he said it (as much as it was possible for her to do so. As a ball of energy, other senses were available to her, but commonplace sight wasn't one of the most acute). She could tell that that wasn't actually what he was saying - the lip movements were different. He was probably speaking in Ancient. But she understood him anyway. And she tried.

Dawn tried to remember things from her life. Buffy and Joyce, how much she loved them, even though they treated her like a child. And Xander, who she had crushed on because he didn't. And-

_Dark blue eyes peering concernedly into hers even as his hand held a knife to her throat. The world of sensations suddenly opening up to her where only the fog of her fading eyesight had been before._

The memory exploded into Dawn's mind like an explosion, all the more powerful because those same eyes were looking at her with that same expression now. The only one who hadn't run away.

Dawn remembered how she had felt then, how alive she had been.

And then Dawn was back in her room, no longer the Key, not remembering any of what had just happened. Just Joyce, collapsing, demanding to know who Dawn was.

~*~

"It's alright." Caelus called after the Key had gone. "It's gone."

Buffy, who had quickly realised that Caelus hadn't followed and had sent Jolinar on ahead and gone back to see why the Goa'uld wasn't behind them, heard the call.

"What the hell! Didn't you know that thing's dangerous?" Buffy exclaimed.

"In case you hadn't noticed" Caelus said mildly "with this limp I can hardly move quickly. I'm in no position to run away from anything."

"What was that thing, anyway?" Buffy asked. "Is it something to do with the Gemini Fairy?"

Caelus winced at the mangling of device's name, but he was more concerned with not revealing Dawn's secret than correcting Buffy. "I could give you a whole variety of theories, but I doubt any of them would be correct." Caelus said. It was true. He knew what the Key was, and he couldn't tell Buffy, so any other theory he gave would be incorrect. But he knew Buffy wouldn't interpret what he was saying that way.

"It's probably some side effect. Like Dawn's eyesight." Buffy mused to herself.

Caelus seized the idea. "That's as good an explanation as any. I suspect that it will go away once I've finished here."

"And just how long will that be?"

"I'm still in the early stages." Caelus answered. "But may I suggest you contact your family?"

"Why?" asked Buffy suspiciously.

Good question. Caelus knew that Dawn had reverted to being the Key before, and this was just another instance of that. It could be nothing more than that, or it could be something else. Something more worrying. It probably wasn't a good idea to take the risk.

But how could Caelus explain that to Buffy without her becoming suspicious? "To the best of my knowledge" Caelus said slowly "that ball of energy has appeared only around you. Assuming that it is a side effect of the Ferula, one might think that it would visit those directly affected by it. Given that it has visited you and you alone, which would suggest that the ball has links with someone who would turn to you. Which would be your sister. So I suggest calling to see how she is."

Buffy mulled it over. It made sense, or as much sense as anything related to this business did. So she decided to call home, see of everything was alright.

"Dawn?... Alright, calm down. Tell me what happened... God. Have you called an ambulance?... Okay, do that now. I'll be there as soon as I can. See you soon." Buffy said into her phone.

Seeing Caelus' questioning appearance, Buffy said shortly "Mom collapsed. Dawn's calling an ambulance now. Come on."

"Come where?" asked Caelus, puzzled.

"To the hospital. You can't seriously expect that I'd leave you here all by yourself, after everything you've done?" Buffy answered.

"May I remind you that what I am doing here is vital for the safety of the entire universe? If you are concerned about leaving me alone, I would suggest you contact someone else." Caelus said coldly.

"I don't have the _time_. My mother's just collapsed. I'm not going to sit around and wait for someone else to get here!" Buffy said.

"Ask Dawn." Caelus suggested.

"What?"

"Ask Dawn. What I'm doing here directly affects her. And Joyce is her mother, too. If she wants me there, I'll go. If she doesn't, then just wait for someone else to come down here." Caelus expanded.

"Fine." Buffy spat, then called Dawn's mobile, hoping that she was done with calling the emergency services by now. She was. And she didn't mind Caelus coming.

~*~

Walter rushed into Hammond's office, which was an unusual enough event even when the Stargate was working. It generally indicated an emergency. However, with the Stargate shut down and having been given only three weeks to get it working again before the program was shut down for good, Hammond didn't know what could possibly be so important.

"Sir, we're receiving a radio transmission. It's the Tok'ra IDC." Walter said, words tumbling over themselves in a rush.

The Tok'ra! SG-1's mission, before the Stargate had failed, had been to contact the Tok'ra. Evidently, they wanted to find out what had happened to prevent SG-1 from completing that mission. And had sent a ship to do so. Hammond wondered if their 'gate was down too.

"Can we contact them?" Hammond asked.

Walter nodded. "We can. I've already set it up."

~*~

As it turned out, General Jacob Carter and Martouf had taken a cargo ship and flown to Earth as fast as they could when they had found that, not only had SG-1 not made it through the Stargate, but that it wasn't working.

No Stargate was working, anywhere. Reports (what few reports were capable of being sent without Stargates) indicated that it was chaos. Of course, the Tok'ra suspected that it was probably a Goa'uld ploy, and one would emerge more powerful as a result. However, given that the galaxy-wide Stargate network failure had come soon after a scheduled visit from Earth had failed, the Tok'ra High Council hadn't ruled out that it may be due to Earth.

Hammond told them all that he could, hoping that they might be able to help with events in Sunnydale. Jacob assured them that not only could they, but they would and they could get to Sunnydale in about a minute.

Hammond decided to call Jack before they did that. While the Initiative had collapsed, there were still plenty of unsavoury characters in Sunnydale. Hammond didn't want to know what a vampire could do with a cloaked ship capable of inter-stellar travel.

~*~

After Dawn finished her call with Buffy, she called Willow, hoping that she would be able to bring as many people to the hospital as possible. Willow assured her that she would be there promptly, and bring the others too. As Dawn didn't have SG-1's numbers to confirm this, Dawn then called Xander, who said that Willow had just told him all about it, and Riley, who hadn't. He forcefully declared that he would get there immediately, if not sooner.

Still, Dawn was forced to wait by herself whilst Joyce was whisked off to have tests performed on her. One of the doctors kindly gave her a stethoscope (if somewhat patronizingly, she was fourteen after all) which Dawn used to listen to her own heartbeat.

It was fast, which Dawn had expected. She was worried about her mother, after all.

What worried her even more were the moments when her heart didn't beat at all. Dawn assumed that she was once again somewhere between being fully human and fully Key. She wondered how long it would be before she became either.

Buffy, Caelus, Riley and Jolinar (who Buffy and Caelus had met on their way out of the Initiative complex) all arrived at the same time. Dawn quickly told them everything she knew about Joyce's collapse, which was admittedly not much.

While Buffy expressed her worry to Riley, who listened sympathetically, Caelus asked Dawn "Are you alright?" in Ancient.

"I suppose so." Dawn answered with a shrug.

"English, please." Buffy snapped.

"It's okay. He was just asking how I was." Dawn replied.

Buffy looked at her sadly for a moment before enveloping her in a hug. "I'm sorry, I should've asked that. I'm just so... stressed, what with everything that's going on at the moment. Sorry, Dawnie."

Dawn shrugged again. "It's okay. I understand." Dawn said thickly. To cover her distress, she placed the stethoscope over Buffy's heart. It was fast, nearly as fast as Dawn's own.

She moved over to Jolinar, whose heartbeat was slightly elevated but not much. Honestly, Dawn suspected that that was mainly to do with having an unfamiliar teenager taking her heartbeat.

Dawn moved to Caelus next, somewhat warily. At first, she couldn't find his heartbeat at all, until he gently took her hand and moved it slightly further to the right and lower down that where she had placed it. There, she could hear his heartbeat, slow and comfortingly steady, and the faint echo that was his symbiote.

Then Dawn moved to Riley, and was shocked to discover that his heartbeat was so much faster than everyone else's that she was surprised it didn't just tear itself apart.


	18. Chapter 18

Willow was angry. She didn't know why.

No, that wasn't true. She did know why. It was because Jack had got healing powers, whereas all she got was some creepy darkness thing she couldn't control that killed people, was killing her, and left her unstable. Willow didn't even have magic. It just wasn't _fair_.

But Willow didn't know why she felt the deep corrosive rage that she did. She felt - well, the closest she had ever come to feeling like she did now was when she had had homicidal tendencies after using the Atanik armband. But what she was feeling now wasn't quite the same.

Back then, Willow had just wanted to kill things. Now, she wanted to hurt things. She was pretty sure that this was just the instability that was a side effect of her Ancient power, so she tried her best not to fly off the handle and wipe something off the face of the planet, like she had done with those airmen.

Nevertheless, Willow lost her cool when her magic twin got a call saying that Joyce had collapsed. She shouldn't have, she knew - in comparison to the end of the universe, someone passing out was nothing - but it was just something else going wrong. It was too much for her.

Willow could feel the urge to do something, anything, welling up inside her. She felt restless and really, really angry. Unfortunately, there wasn't a target for this anger, so she got up as soon as magic Willow relayed the news and strode out of the room.

Willow's head began pounding as she strode down the hallway of her house. By the time she got to her front door, Willow genuinely thought that her head might split apart.

The door was just an obstacle in her path. Willow didn't want to expend the necessary energy to open the door - although it wouldn't take much, she felt like it was a waste of time. Equally, she didn't want to go back inside and pace up and down until the rage and headache subsided. She wanted to do something more productive. Not that she knew what that might be.

So Willow put her hand against the door and pushed. She didn't really expect anything to happen. Certainly not that her hand would move through the door as easily as though it was made of air.

Willow, expecting resistance where none was to be found, stumbled forward. She should've collided with the door, she knew, but she didn't. She just kept traveling through it.

Willow looked back at the door and saw that the door now had a perfectly Willow-shaped hole cut into it. Willow smiled. She felt better now. The headache was gone, and she no longer felt so overwhelmingly angry.

Then she coughed. This went on for some time. Eventually Willow stopped and took some deep, shuddering breaths. There was a bitter metallic taste in her mouth. She looked at her hand, and wasn't unduly surprised to see it flecked with blood. She spat, and that was bloody too.

Caelus had said it would take him a week to come up with a way to excise her Ancient gene. Suddenly, Willow doubted that she had that long.

~*~

Daniel was worried about Willow. Whilst everyone else seemed content to talk amongst themselves, Willow wasn't. She kept to herself. Daniel couldn't help but think that she was worried about the death sentence that hung over her head.

However, when she got up and left the room, Daniel didn't follow. Not immediately. He figured that she needed space - perhaps she thought that Joyce's collapse was too similar to her own condition. So he stayed, and listened to Jack as he organized the trip to the hospital. Even as he did so, Daniel couldn't help but feel that something was wrong, but he dismissed it.

When Daniel saw the hole in the front door and Willow sitting huddled on the front step, he wished he hadn't.

"Jack!" Daniel called urgently. He didn't even think about how unnecessary that was, given that Jack was right behind him. He was too worried. "I think Willow needs healing again."

"Right." Jack said matter-of-factly, brushing past Daniel. He halted for a brief moment in front of the wrecked door, before easing himself through the hole, finding that it was too small and settling for opening it instead.

Willow didn't move as Jack put his hands on her shoulders. Daniel thought she relaxed a little, though. He wasn't to know that this was due to Willow no longer feeling as though her lungs were full of hot ash.

Daniel sat next to Willow on the doorstep. He considered putting his arm around her shoulders, but thought that that might be inappropriate. "How are you doing?" he asked, knowing that it was trite even as he said it.

Willow didn't answer for several long moments. "It's different."

"What is?" Daniel asked, feeling as though the conversation was getting away from him somewhat.

"Dying like this. It's slower. I know I didn't really die, before, when I was possessed, but it's worse like this. I can feel my body shutting down, bit by bit." Willow said in a melancholy voice.

This time, Daniel did put his arm around her shoulder. He wasn't even sure Willow noticed. "You're not going to die. Caelus will find a cure, and you'll be fine."

"And I'll keep healing you." said Jack cheerfully. Daniel jumped slightly - he'd forgotten that the other man was there. He didn't move his arm, though.

"I've got some good news." other Jack butted in. "The Tok'ra are coming. They'll be landing at the airstrip in half an hour, which will give us enough time to act as a welcoming committee."

"D'you hear that? The Tok'ra will be able to heal you better than Jack can." Daniel said reassuringly.

Jack opened his mouth as though to argue, then shut it again and shrugged. It was probably true. "So, Danny, I'm guessing you'll be wanting to bring your girlfriend down to the airstrip whilst the other-me and other-Willow go and see what's up at the hospital." Jack said.

Daniel stood and helped Willow up. "You know" Daniel said speculatively "it's probably not the best idea to tease Willow just now. She might just walk through you like she did that door."

Jack shrugged again and grinned widely. "If I didn't tease people who could kill me, then the Goa'uld would never get to see my sparkling wit, would they?"

Willow smiled half-heartedly. She might be feeling a lot better now - she wondered if Jack had managed to heal her of her emotional instability as well - but she still wished they wouldn't joke about that. Still, they meant well.

In any case, she was going to greet the first Tok'ra to visit Sunnydale. She wondered if Sam's dad would be there.

~*~

Dawn was mildly surprised at the speed with which Riley was rushed off to a doctor, and then to another doctor and finally to a heart specialist. She had always imagined that Sunnydale hospital must be as inefficient as the police force, but then she supposed that what with all the injuries that happened every day they couldn't afford to be.

Eventually, Riley was told that he could leave the hospital but that he really, really shouldn't. With tachycardia like that, he could have a heart attack literally at any moment. But Riley, against the doctor and Buffy's advice, decided to check out anyway.

In desperation, Buffy turned to Caelus. She didn't want to have to ask him a favour, but she didn't think she had much of a choice. "Can you do something for him?"

Caelus looked at her blankly. "Do I look like a healer to you? Go and speak to Jack."

Now it was Buffy's turn to look blank. "Why would I talk to Jack?"

"Because he's a healer." Caelus said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"You really think he'd be able to help Riley?" Buffy said, hardly daring to hope.

"Possibly. It depends on how skilled a healer he is. I've known a healer who could raise the dead if she got there fast enough, although the results weren't pretty. But it shouldn't come to that." Caelus replied.

At that moment, Riley came back with Jack and Willow in tow. Seconds later, a rather dazed looking Joyce walked into the room with a doctor close behind.

As much as Buffy wanted to ask Jack to heal Riley (and her mother) right there and then, she knew that she couldn't until the doctor had gone.

The doctor turned out not to be a doctor but just a medical intern named Ben Wilkinson. He said that there didn't seem to be anything immediately wrong with Joyce, but that she would need several more tests done. Then, sensing that Buffy wanted some time with her mother, he left, after reassuring her that the collapse could be due to something as simple as low blood sugar.

As soon as he had gone, Dawn said to Jack "Buffy wants to ask you to heal her boyfriend."

"Well, when she does ask me, I'll tell her that she's got the wrong Jack." Jack replied. "I left my healing hands attached to my other body."

Buffy heard, but instead asked Joyce "How are you feeling?"

"Fine. Embarrassed, actually, at having to put you through this. I must've given Dawn quite a turn when I passed out." Joyce said self-deprecatingly. "But who's the young man with the crutches?"

"That's Caelus." Buffy said. She'd forgotten that Joyce had never actually seen him. After the affair with MOO, she'd tended to keep out of Slayer business. Joyce had met Jack and Sam (even though it was Jolinar who was actually here), though. In fact, Sam had been the one to explain to Joyce about the whole twinning situation - given that it involved Dawn, Joyce fit that she really should get herself involved.

"He's an alien." Dawn supplied helpfully.

"Ah." said Joyce, extending a hand. "Nice to meet you." Caelus, somewhat surprised at the friendly gesture, shook it gingerly.

"You do know that he's tried to kill us before, don't you?" Buffy said.

Joyce shrugged. "So has Spike, and I get on well enough with him."

Buffy didn't have anything to say to that.

"Anyway" Joyce continued "I've probably got to go and have more tests done now." Then, to Jack, she said "If you find your healing hands, drop on by and heal me, will you? I'll be pincushion by the time these doctors are done."

"Will do." Jack said as Joyce left. Then, to everyone else he said "Anyway, the Tok'ra are coming."

Jolinar stood up abruptly. "_Who_?" she demanded, voice slipping into the registers of a Goa'uld.

Willow opened her mouth to answer, but Jack cut her off. "It's a surprise. They'll be landing at the airstrip any minute now. Other-me will be there if you want him to fix your boyfriend, Buffy."

"I don't need fixing." Riley said decisively. "I'm fine. I'm better than fine. I've never been stronger."

Caelus cleared his throat. "Would now be a good time to point out that Dawn has promised to teach me how to eat food?" Dawn hid a smile behind her hand.

"If Dawn gets food from the cafeteria, I'll take you back to the lab." Jolinar said. "Have the Tok'ra meet us there."

This sounded like a good plan, so no one argued. And no one wondered why Jolinar might not want to immediately meet the Tok'ra after two years of being dead.

Truthfully, Jolinar was nervous. She was scared of how they might react to having one of their members return from the dead.

And, if it was Martouf and Lantash, she wanted to put off the moment when she would have to explain to them that it was only temporary.


	19. Chapter 19

Sam wasn't with Jack when he got the news that the Tok'ra were coming. Nor was she with Dawn when Joyce collapsed.

Sam was with Spike. In his crypt.

They were talking. Not about anything important. Just talking. Sam didn't do that nearly enough - she was always off world, or studying some alien artefact or other. She never really had the time to just sit down and have a chat. She guessed that Spike didn't, either. Although probably not for the same reasons.

As a result, Sam didn't get the message that her father was landing. She was underground in a crypt with stone walls. And electronic things tended to go wonky on the Hellmouth anyway, according to Spike, so it was hardly surprising. She only got it when she and Spike went back outside. Or when she went back outside, and Spike watched her from the shadow of the doorway.

Sam wondered, as she felt her phone vibrate with the incoming delayed message, exactly what was the point in vampires being unable to walk in the sun. She understood that it was good for humans, as was the inability to enter uninvited, but she wondered whether Caelus had built them that way or if something had happened since then. Sam supposed she would have to ask him.

Then she saw the messages, one saying that her father would be landing at the airstrip, and another telling her to meet him at the lab. Telling Sam to meet him there now.

"What is it?" Spike asked, concerned. He'd seen her face go suddenly blank after reading the messages.

"It's my dad. He's here. In Sunnydale. Now." Sam said disjointedly.

"Where?" Spike said, but he darted back into his crypt before Sam could answer. He returned moments later shrouded by a blanket. "Okay, lead the way."

"Spike" Sam said slowly "you're going to meet my father."

"Yes?" Spike said. He knew that. Sam has just said it. Then he got it. He, Spike, would be meeting the father of the person who... he had feelings for. "Oh."

"Oh." Sam agreed.

"Well, I'm old enough to your great-grandfather." Spike said with a confidence he didn't feel. He liked Sam. For some inexplicable reason, she seemed to like him too. Even though he was a vampire. And now her father had turned up, and Spike had a hard time believing that he'd approve of him. "I'm sure I can survive meeting your dad."

Sam wasn't so sure. Jacob was an Airforce General and a Selmak was a leader amongst the Tok'ra. She was sure that either or both of them would make some effort to scare off Spike - after all, who wants their daughter dating a vampire? - and Spike had enough problems about that anyway.

Still, there was no real choice in the matter. "Okay. But Spike, don't wear the blanket when you meet him, okay?"

~*~

"Good day, General Carter, Martouf." Jack said politely.

"Jacob." Jacob corrected. "I'm not really a General anymore. Hello, Teal'c. And Teal'c. And Daniel. And you must be Willow."

Willow nodded, blushing despite herself.

"Uh, Jacob?" Daniel said tentatively. "Would you happen to have any healing devices with you?"

"We do." Jacob answered. "Why? George didn't tell us anyone was injured."

"Not injured, exactly. But Willow is suffering as a side effect of the Ferula. Caelus is working on a cure, but we had hoped that your technology would help with that in the meantime." Daniel replied.

"Jacob." Martouf said, before Jacob could reply.

There was a momentary pause as Selmak came to the fore, and then the Tok'ra said "Ah, yes. Martouf is most desirous to meet Caelus."

"_Selmak_!" Martouf cried, scandalized.

"And Jolinar too, of course." Selmak added with a wry chuckle.

Jack said "D'you want me to take you to the lab? You can meet them both there." Jack didn't understand what had just happened - he assumed that it passed as a joke amongst the Tok'ra.

"Yes, thank you, Colonel." Martouf replied. The pair left together.

Selmak turned to Willow. "I fear I cannot help you. If you were wounded or suffering from a disease, the healing device would be able to help you, but as the problem is your own body malfunctioning, I would have to scan your body and find out what is causing the problem."

"And I don't turn up on machines." Willow concluded despairingly.

Daniel sagged, disappointed. "Oh well, there's still Jack." he said, trying to console Willow.

A pause, as Jacob returned. "Where's my daughter?" Jacob asked.

Daniel opened his mouth to answer, then closed it again. He glanced at Willow, who said "I think she's with Spike." uncertainly.

Jacob frowned. "Spike?"

"He's a-" Willow froze. She had been planning on saying vampire, but that probably wasn't the best of ideas. And she didn't really want to talk to Sam's father about the strange relationship she and Spike had. "-friend" she finished lamely.

"Right. Let's go find Sam and this... friend." Jacob said, coming in explosively on the last word as a parody of Willow's pause. Willow flushed slightly in response.

~*~

Dawn managed to get back from the hospital cafeteria to the lab only a short while after Caelus and Jolinar did. No one else had yet turned up.

"Ah, Dawn!" Caelus said brightly. Or at least that's what Dawn thought he said - he had a pipette in his mouth whilst he was doing something with his hands, so it sounded like he said "Adon!"

"'kay, I've got food." Dawn said, holding up the plastic bag. "It's cafeteria food, though, so it probably won't be very good, but then if this is the first time you've eaten food for yonks then that's probably not important."

"How long is a yonk?" Caelus murmured to Jolinar after removing the pipette from his mouth.

Jolinar shrugged. "I think it's just Human for a very long time."

Dawn passed him a sandwich. Caelus looked at it, then picked it up and turned it over and over in his hands. Finally, he looked at Dawn with a pleading expression on his face. Dawn relented.

"First step, you have to open the packaging." Dawn said. The she watched as Caelus went and found a scalpel and neatly sliced away the plastic. "Although people generally just, you know, open it." Dawn added.

Seeing that Caelus would probably have problems with this, Dawn walked over and picked up half his sandwich, explaining what she was doing as she did it. "Then you pick up the sandwich, being careful not to spill any of the filling. Next you open your mouth, bring the sandwich closer, and then you do this." Dawn took a bite, chewed theatrically and swallowed.

Caelus copied her, and Dawn could see that he fought the urge not to spray sandwich all over the room. Eventually, he managed to force himself to swallow, and then he vigorously scrubbed his tongue with his teeth. "How does your mouth not explode?"

Dawn stared at the half of the sandwich that she still held. It had seemed like an ordinary sandwich to her. "Why should it?"

"_Gustus_, the taste. It is like-" Caelus' English failed him and he settled for making a sound like bomb going off and making a corresponding gesture with his hands.

"It's like a taste explosion?" Dawn supplied.

"Thank you. Yes." Caelus said.

Dawn looked at the sandwich again. "I guess it's just because you haven't eaten for-"

"Yonks."

"-yes, you haven't eaten for yonks, and you're not used to tasting things. I'm sure you'll get used to it."

At that moment, Buffy, Riley, magic Willow and human Jack walked into the lab. Willow and Jack both had the expressions of someone forced to watch a domestic dispute, and judging by the way that Buffy and Riley were pointedly ignoring each other and standing as far away from each other as possible, the argument hadn't been resolved. Dawn wondered exactly what it was that stopped Riley from seeking treatment. If she had something going on with her heart like Riley did, she'd try and get it sorted out as soon as possible.

"Are the others not here yet?" Jack said, trying to break the awkward silence. No one answered (no one needed to) although Caelus took another bite of the sandwich and promptly wished he hadn't.

However, Martouf and Ancient Jack came in.

Not that Martouf seemed to notice that anyone else was there. He just stared at Jolinar as though he had seen a ghost (which he kind of had) and Jolinar stared back in much the same way.

"_You're alive._" Martouf said in Goa'uld, a wealth of expression behind the simple phrase. Other than Jolinar, only Caelus understood, and he tried his best to pretend he hadn't. Everyone else, seeing this for the intensely private thing it was, decided to try their best to pretend it wasn't happening.

Jolinar decided not to tell Martouf that she wasn't, not really. And she wouldn't be for long in any case. Anyway, she found that she couldn't even speak. So she settled for nodding.

"_I_" Martouf said, then stopped trying to gather his thoughts. He tried again, but again only got as far as "_I_". He had so many things that he wanted to say, and yet he couldn't seem to say anything. Martouf spread his hands helpfully.

Jolinar nodded again. Being temporarily struck dumb herself, she understood the problem.

Without consulting anyone, the pair left the room. No one tried to stop them from going.


	20. Chapter 20

"Jack?" Buffy said.

"Yeah?" both Jacks replied.

Buffy scowled. "You know, that's really annoying."

Jack smiled. "We know."

The other Jack added "That's why we do it."

"Anyway, whichever one of you can heal" Buffy said, because even though she had come in with a Jack she couldn't tell which was which "can you please heal Riley?"

"Look, Buffy, I _told_ you." Riley said exasperatedly. "I don't _need_ healing."

"Why not?" Buffy said, hands on hips. "You haven't explained why."

Riley opened his mouth. Shut it again. How could he explain his fear that, if he was healed, he wouldn't be strong enough for Buffy? Surely, if he was to explain, she would treat him with disdain for his insecurity. Buffy needed an equal, someone as competent and strong as she was. Not someone clinging desperately to her.

No, Riley couldn't say that. He could only repeat what he'd said before. "Buffy. I'm strong. My heart hasn't given out yet. I'm fine, I don't need to be healed."

"Has he gone drug crazed again?" Ancient Jack asked Buffy.

Human Jack answered. "No, we don't think so. He's got tachycardia. 'spose it could be because of the drugs."

"He sure seems like an addict." Ancient Jack murmured.

"Can you just heal him anyway?" Willow asked, partially to stop the Jacks from having a conversation between themselves, because it was quite disturbing. "'cause, you know, it's a real pain listening to these two argue about it, and that seems like the fastest way to get them to stop."

"I second that." Human Jack volunteered.

Riley scowled but didn't say anything.

Ancient Jack spread his hands. "I would heal him, but I'm not about to go running around healing everyone. Especially not if they don't me to."

Buffy began to protest, but Willow interrupted. "You won't change his mind, Buff. You might pester him until the end of the universe, but he won't change his mind."

Ancient Jack gave a slight bow. "Thank you."

"It wasn't a compliment." Willow said, smiling.

"I'll gladly heal him, though." Jacob said, as he, Ancient Willow and Jack came into the room. "I know from experience that it's better to get health problems sorted out earlier rather than later."

"How'd you know about that?" Buffy asked. "Just how good is the Tok'ra's hearing?"

"Only slightly better than a human's. They've just been waiting outside for the last few minutes." Caelus said.

Jacob looked at him appraisingly. "You must be Caelus."

Caelus frowned. "Must I be?"

Seeing Caelus' confusion, Daniel interjected. "It's an idiom. He's just asking whether your Caelus or not." Daniel guessed that while Caelus know understood the language, the finer nuances were probably beyond him.

"Ah. In that case, yes, I'm Caelus." Caelus said.

Jacob raised a healing device. "I was told that you have some kind of mysterious leg injury. I brought this to heal it. Though I'll heal the young man too, if I need to."

"No." Caelus and Riley said at exactly the same time.

Jacob ignored Riley, and asked Caelus "Why not?"

"That device is nothing but a bastardized form of the vastly more advanced Alterran technology. Alterran technology would not be able to remove this limp. Therefore yours won't be able to either."

There was a pause as Selmak took control. "Perhaps you underestimate our technology. May I speak to your symbiote?"

"Why?" Caelus asked, puzzled. "That's just me with a different voice."

"You know, I never thought to ask" Ancient Willow said thoughtfully "but can you Goa'uld turn off that creepy voice? 'cause I've heard Caelus do both, but he didn't noticeably change like you do, Selmak."

"We can." Selmak said, doing so. "It's just uncomfortable." then, to Caelus, he said "How is it possible that you keep your symbiote separate from you?"

"I took my symbiote when it was very young. Also, my strength of will is stronger than a standard human host. While a Goa'uld can easily subdue a host's mind, mine is stronger. I have the strength and healing factor of a Goa'uld, but I am not forced to share my mind with one." Caelus replied.

"So you've just reversed what the Goa'uld have done for centuries. You control your Goa'uld rather than the other way around." Daniel said, face hardening. He remembered Sha're. He was against any life form subjugating another, even a Goa'uld.

Caelus shook his head. "You misunderstand me. My symbiote is me. If I were to speak as my symbiote, it would be me with a different voice. That is all. There is no separate persona."

"That's impossible!" Selmak exclaimed.

Caelus shrugged nonchalantly. "I've done many impossible things."

Jack snorted. "I wonder if arrogance is hereditary?" he murmured. "Most of the Goa'uld seem every bit as prideful as you."

"I have no children." Caelus replied.

"Seriously?" Daniel asked. "But you were they're king. You'd have had queens throwing themselves at you."

"I was High Lord." Caelus corrected. "And I didn't. I tied myself genetically to an entire race. Every Goa'uld was an extension of my body. I had no real body myself, just a mind and a - there is no proper word in this language. Central nexus? A central nexus to hold it, the shape-shifting body which you saw when I was last on Earth. To have had a child with that body would not have been possible."

"It would also have been really squicky." Dawn said. "Having a child with yourself? Just eww."

Pretty much everyone agreed with that, and they decided to drop the subject.

Martouf, Jolinar, Spike and Sam came into the room. Martouf and Jolinar looked happier now, and they'd evidently resolved things. To some extent, anyway. Dawn noticed that there was a bright, brittle edge to them. Hardly surprising, given that the tentative reunion had to end at some point.

Dawn was pretty sure that Selmak noticed that too, but he decided to talk to Sam and Spike first.

"So, you must be Spike." Jacob said acidly, after Selmak passed control to him. "I've heard that you're a... friend of my daughter."

"Yes." Spike said, more coolly than he felt. He was pretty sure that, if he could blush, he would. He didn't look to see whether Sam was blushing too.

"Sam, couldn't you have been... friends with someone who didn't look like Billy Idol?" Jacob said. Buffy sniggered, and Willow elbowed her into silence.

"Dad, leave off, will you? You know in my line of work I tend not to meet many people, and Spike's at least available." Sam snapped. Jack (both Jacks) looked away.

"Oh great." Spike groaned. "She only likes me because I'm available."

Sam flushed. "No, Spike, it's not like that..."

"Then what is it like?" Spike asked.

Since they'd entered the room together, Martouf had been watching Spike. He'd thought that there was something strange about the man. Now he thought that he'd figured out what it was. Maybe it was only because Caelus was nearby and he seemed to never stop moving, but it looked as though Spike didn't move. Oh, he moved when he spoke, and he blinked occasionally, but he didn't breathe and there wasn't any of the minuscule shifts in position that Martouf would expect to see. This led him to ask, before Sam could reply, "What are you, Spike?"

Well, that was fast. Spike had figured it would take a while longer before someone mentioned he was a vampire. He certainly hadn't thought that one of the Tok'ra would figure it out.

But he could hardly deny it now. So he vamped out by way of answer. Spike was vaguely satisfied to see Jacob go stumbling backwards in surprise. He was also rather discomforted when Martouf stepped forward, interest lighting up his face.

"A vampire!" Martouf said excitedly. "I thought your kind was a legend. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, if Caelus is real too."

"A vampire. Seriously, a vampire. Okay, aliens I can manage, but a vampire?" Jacob said.

"Vampires figure prominently in Tok'ra legends. None of us truly believed they existed." Martouf said. "I am surprised that you haven't heard of them."

"Selmak and I don't really talk about that kind of thing." Jacob replied.

Spike returned to his human face and said "You're not afraid?"

"Should I be?" Martouf said.

"Most humans would be. Vampires don't exactly have the best reputation." Spike answered.

"They're not exactly the best people either." Buffy snarked, then grinned impudently at Spike's glare.

"How odd." Martouf said. "According to the legends, vampires were like any other race, albeit with certain physical differences."

Spike blinked, then said to Caelus "I guess you weren't lying about not making vampires as soulless monsters."

"Why would I want soulless monsters?" Caelus replied. "Much better to have properly integrated citizens."

"Who drink blood and can't go out into sunlight." Buffy added.

"Actually, they can. Just not the sunlight of their own planet. The wood of their own planet kills them too, because of photosynthesis. And blood drinking really isn't such a big issue." Caelus said.

"Sam, can I get off this planet?" Spike said longingly "I'd love some sun."

"I'm sorry, can we get back to the vampire thing?" Jacob interjected. "Especially the fact that my daughter's "friends" with Dracula."

"Hey!" Spike protested indignantly. "I'm not that poncy sod."

"Okay, it looks as though you've got a lot of catching up to do." Daniel said diplomatically, but Jacob broke in before he could say more.

"Yes, I'm sure we do, but the fact remains that my daughter seems to be dating a vampire!"

"Yeah, Dad, and you've got an alien living inside you! What's the difference?" Sam protested hotly.

"_Tacite!_" Caelus said. He didn't speak loudly. But once again, it seemed as though people obeyed him without stopping to think about it, even though they didn't know what he had said (except for Dawn, Daniel and Martouf, who was more scholarly than the other Tok'ra and had picked up rudimentary Ancient over the years). "I will have no arguing in my laboratory! Go elsewhere or be silent."

Silence reigned for several long moments, before Jacob broke it awkwardly by saying "I'm sorry, Sam. I just..."

"I know, Dad. But Spike's a good guy, once you get past the fact that he looks like Billy Idol." Sam said.

Spike decided that now wasn't the best time to mention that Billy Idol had stolen his look.

Dawn decided to break the lingering tension by asking "You going to eat that sandwich, Caelus?"

Caelus looked down at his half of the sandwich and grimaced. "I probably should, shouldn't I?"


	21. Chapter 21

The next few days passed uneventfully, other than Buffy finding a few graves that she had thought would turn out to be vamps being nothing but a mound of dirt. Spike suspected that that was to do with the bug thing that seemed to be able to burrow better than a mole.

Spike hadn't talked to Sam since her dad had shown up. In fact, they had successfully managed to completely avoid each other. Similarly, after Jacob had forcibly healed Riley and had Martouf hold him down as he did (for a human, Riley was unusually strong, no doubt as a side effect of whatever was wrong with him) his relationship with Buffy had been somewhat strained.

As a result, both Buffy and Spike spent quite a while watching over Caelus, although Buffy also did so because Dawn had taken to spending quite a lot of her time around the Ancient. Not that Buffy knew it, but being around Caelus made Dawn feel safer, even though she knew she still might turn into the Key at any moment.

Unfortunately, because neither of them could stand the other, this led Spike and Buffy to bicker endlessly. This had come to a stop when Caelus had gone on strike, refusing to work as long as both the vampire and the Slayer in the room. Several others who happened to be around at the time had seconded that, and so Spike never guarded Caelus while Buffy was around.

He couldn't help but miss the bickering, though. Annoying Buffy was so fun.

It was around 3AM, and no one else was around, when Spike offered Caelus a cigarette. Up until then, Spike hadn't smoked around Caelus because he didn't want the Goa'uld glomming his ciggies, but he felt the need for one and he didn't want Caelus to confiscate it and smoke it himself.

Caelus looked at it for several seconds before taking, saying as he did so "Okay, you can smoke. Just make sure you've finished in 17 minutes."

"What happens in 17 minutes?" Spike asked, although he wasn't really all that interested. As had so often been the case in recent days, his mind was on Sam.

"Nothing. But in 21 minutes and 32 seconds, I'll need to do - something that you wouldn't understand and I can't explain in English, but I need the smoke to have cleared by then." Caelus answered.

Spike gestured languidly with one hand, watching the smoke make an arch in front of him. "How do you tell a girl you love her?" Spike said to himself. He hadn't even planned on saying it out aloud, but this was his first cigarette for hours, and it was a question that had been preying on his mind for a while now. It just slipped out.

"I would imagine you just tell her, and then wait to see whether she laughs hysterically or kisses you." Caelus said matter-of-factly. He reached for a beaker, but his sleeve caught a test tube rack and knocked to the floor. It was empty, luckily. "Blast." Caelus said, glancing down at the broken glass.

"Clumsy." Spike said blandly, avoiding the matter at hand. But, really, he shouldn't. After all, after Caelus finished his work, Sam would leave again. He wanted to tell her how he felt before that. Even if her father was still around. But he had had absolutely zero experience in courting, despite being over a century old.

Besides, as facile as Caelus' advice was, he was about the only person Spike could talk to. The Scoobies treated him as an outcast, just because he had tried to kill them a few times, and Dawn, the only one who seemed to actually like him, was too young. He couldn't talk to SG-1, because Jack was still hung up on Sam and both Willow and Daniel would immediately tell Sam everything he said to them. And Spike talking to Jolinar about Sam would be just too weird.

"Yeah, but... what if she does laugh in my face?" Spike said worriedly.

"Look, Spike, am I really the person you want to talk to about this?" Caelus said.

"I don't want to talk about this _at all_. But, unless I say something I will burst." Spike admitted.

"I haven't got the faintest idea of what you should say." Caelus said. "Love is hardly an area I'm familiar with. Just go and find Sam and make some anguished declaration of love. That's what people generally do isn't it?" Caelus took a drag in his cigarette. "Just start speaking. It'll come."

And so saying, Caelus toppled over sideways. For a moment, Spike was unconcerned - Caelus' leg meant that he stumbled and fell quite a bit - but when Caelus didn't stir Spike went over to see what had happened.

Caelus was lying in a heap on the floor, eyes closed. For a second, Spike thought he had died, but then the Goa'uld began to snore gently.

Spike realised that Caelus had been working virtually non-stop for days. Given that he had had to get Dawn to remind him how to eat (Spike didn't want to know what Caelus knew about other bodily functions), it was entirely possible that Caelus had just forgotten that he now needed sleep.

Spike hoisted Caelus into a fireman's lift and headed to Buffy's. As there was only a single bed and an armchair at Spike's crypt, and Willow and Giles were housing Sam and Jacob respectively that was the only place that Spike could take him.

~*~

When Caelus woke up, he had no idea what had happened. He did not know why he was lying on a bed, or whose room he was in. He had never seen it before. But that didn't concern Caelus. What did, however, was that his scythe was nowhere to be found.

He got up and crossed to the door, which was locked. Hardly surprising, given the distrust that the Scoobies regarded him with.

Still, Caelus was a Goa'uld, and it was unlikely that the door had been reinforced in any way. So Caelus put his palms on the door and pushed hard.

The door opened, and the lower hinge gave way, leaving the door hanging lopsidedly on the wall. But Caelus didn't care about that. He headed downstairs.

He saw his scythe leaning against a rack of swords in the corner of the room. Caelus, forgetting that he had promised not to touch it, strode towards it and picked it up. He sighed in relief upon doing so.

Then Caelus turned to see Joyce poking her head around the kitchen door, with Buffy standing protectively in front of her and brandishing an empty bowl as though it was some type of weapon.

Rather than be brained by a bowl, Caelus put down the scythe and raised his hands non-threateningly.

Then Caelus caught a glimpse of Dawn, who was standing in the middle of the room he had just strode through.

In fact, standing in the exact same space as he had just strode through. Given that Caelus had to focus to see Dawn at the best of times, he guessed that Dawn's grip on having a body had been particularly tenuous at that point, and Caelus had blindly walked right through her.

Dawn vanished. Neither Buffy nor Joyce seemed to notice this. Evidently, with Dawn reverting occasionally to being the Key, the spell that had implanted memories of her into everyone's heads was wearing thin. Caelus hoped that would be sorted out when he eradicated the Ancient gene from Jack and Willow.

"What are you doing?" Buffy asked warily.

"Standing in a non-threatening manner so that you don't try to kill me with a bowl." Caelus answered truthfully. Joyce snorted in amusement.

Buffy was unamused. "What was that bang upstairs?"

"You locked me in that room, I wanted to get out." Caelus said plainly.

"It wasn't locked." Dawn said, coming down the stairs. She was a lot easier to see than she had been before she vanished. Caelus was glad that she had only been the Key for so short a time. "My room doesn't have a lock, but the door sticks sometimes. I've been meaning to get Xander to fix it. I'll guess I'll have to now, given that you blew it off its hinges."

"Oh. Sorry." Caelus said. Then he blinked as he processed what he had just heard. "Your room? Why was I in your room?"

Because Caelus was outside of reality, with some focus he could see Dawn as vaguely human shaped energy. He could hear her voice, but he couldn't see her expression. So he couldn't tell that Dawn was blushing. But Dawn could, and it made her blush all the harder.

Buffy answered for her. "You fell asleep on the job. I was all for leaving you in a cell in the Initiative-"

"Buffy!" Dawn protested.

"-but quite a few people were against that. However, what with aliens and Willow's buddies hanging around, there really wasn't anywhere we could put you, so Dawn volunteered to put you in her room."

Caelus digested this. Then he said to Dawn "Thank you."

If Dawn hadn't already been blushing, she would've started to then. If it hadn't been for the fact that Jacob had pointed out that letting someone with a bad leg injury sleep on a couch would lead to him being virtually paralysed the next day, and the fact that there was nowhere else to put him, Dawn hadn't really had a choice. Even then, if it hadn't been for Buffy's room being too full of weapons to easily remove them all, and Joyce refusing to sleep on the couch, Caelus wouldn't have slept there at all.

Caelus turned back to Buffy and said "I need a sample of Spike's and Jolinar's blood."

"Why?" Buffy asked, instantly wary about anything involving blood.

"Because one is a vampire and the other is a Goa'uld. I could explain more, but you wouldn't understand and my language skills are almost certainly insufficient to explain it to you." Caelus said bluntly.

"Spike's a vampire. I don't think he even has blood, not really. And you're a Goa'uld, can't you use your own blood?" Buffy said.

Before Caelus could say anything, Joyce laid a hand on her daughter's shoulder and said "Buffy, can I talk to you for a moment?"

The pair withdrew into the kitchen. Buffy knew that Caelus could hear them anyway, although he probably wouldn't mention what he heard.

"Buffy, I know you're upset about Riley. And Dawn and Willow, too. But is that really any reason to antagonize Caelus? As far as I can tell, he is doing the best he can to help."

"What?" Buffy gaped. "Mom, he tried to kill my friends!"

"Yes. So has Spike, and I hear that you treat him much the same way. But listen, Buffy. People can change. Stop blaming them for having done things they wouldn't do now." Joyce said.

"Mom, Spike's still a killer. He just can't hurt humans. He's _said_ that he would kill me if he ever got the chance. And Caelus tried to wipe out his own race. They aren't good people." Buffy argued.

"What about Faith? You told me that Angel thanks she can be saved. You trust him. Don't you? You believe she deserves a second chance?"

Buffy struggled for a few moments, before eventfully managing to say "Yes, but-"

"No buts. If Caelus was going to harm anyone, he could do it right now." Joyce said.

Buffy stiffened, as she realised that Caelus was in a room, with his scythe, and Dawn. She ran back into the other room, only to see that Dawn was explaining to Caelus about sleeping. Caelus had made no move towards his scythe - indeed, he had pointedly moved as far away from it as possible.

Okay, Buffy was willing to concede that Joyce might have a point about Caelus (not that that that meant that she wouldn't still be keeping a close eye on him) but she still thought she was wrong about Spike.

Speaking of which, as it was still daylight and Spike wouldn't be out and about until sundown, Buffy could head over to his crypt and pester the sleeping vampire unmercifully before finally getting him to give Caelus a sample of his blood.

~*~

After having been pestered unmercifully by Buffy before she finally revealed that Caelus wanted his blood, he decided that he would rather wrap himself in blanket and go and get Jolinar than stay with the most _annoying_ Slayer Spike had ever met.

Unfortunately, Spike's luck was so good that, instead of meeting Jolinar, the first person Spike encountered was Sam.

"Sam." Spike said, in a hollow voice.

"Spike." Sam replied in much the same tone.

Spike took a deep (unnecessary) breath, let it out again, and said "Listen, Sam, there's something I wanted to tell you."

"Yes?" Sam said, in a voice that made it clear that she wasn't sure whether she wanted to hear what he was going to say or not.

What was it Caelus had said? Just start speaking? Okay, Spike would try that. Even though he was sure it would make him seem like a babbling idiot.

"Sam, you were born to fly. I see that every time I look at you. You belong amongst the stars." Spike had no idea what he was saying, but he forged ahead anyway.

"Then there's me. I want to hold onto you and never let you go, but I can't. I can't hold the wind. So I'm just sitting here, waiting in the shadows and selfishly hoping that maybe the wind will stop for me."

Spike couldn't bring himself to look at Sam. He knew he'd blown it. What he had said (which he honestly couldn't remember) was worse than his poetry had ever been.

If Spike had had any breath, it would've whooshed out of him when Sam pressed her lips to his. To his surprise and pleasure, he could feel Sam smiling against his lips.

Sam drew back after a while - Spike neither knew nor cared how long they had stayed like that - and said tenderly "Oh, Spike. Of _course_ I'd stop for you."


	22. Chapter 22

Willow had lost count of all the times that Jack had had to heal her. The times between healings were getting shorter and shorter, and by now it seemed as though there were two or three every hour. Willow could tell that she didn't have long left - and Jack was getting more and more tired, although he tried to hide it from her. Willow doubted that he would be able to continue much longer.

And then she would die.

That is, if Caelus was right. Which Willow was no longer entirely sure about. Of course, with her emotions sliding from homicidal to melancholic at the drop of a hat even with Jack healing her, it was difficult for Willow to be sure of anything.

But, besides the physical pain, Willow didn't feel so bad.

Then Willow remembered that Caelus had said not everyone died from the power she had. Sure, he'd said that everyone wished that they had, but that wasn't the same. And if she didn't die, then the universe wouldn't end.

Willow didn't know what the chances of her survival were, but really, it was her only chance. She very much doubted that Caelus would be finished before she died. Or whatever was happening to her ran its course.

However, in order to find out exactly how many people survived (and, more ominously, what happened to those who did) Willow needed to talk to Caelus. Ordinarily, this wouldn't be a problem, but Jack was taking a much needed rest. Willow didn't want to wake him up, so that he could heal her if she needed it.

Unfortunately, with Daniel and the others hanging around, Willow knew that she wouldn't be able to leave the house without someone noticing and waking Jack on her behalf. And Willow thought that, if Jack didn't sleep now, he'd probably just collapse with exhaustion later. So either she could go without healing now, or wait until healing was no longer an option.

So, she needed to get out of the house. If Willow still had her magic, that wouldn't have been a problem, but she didn't. All she had was some corrosive black stuff that cut through anything and was killing her.

Suddenly, a memory emerged. Buffy, climbing up her wall and through her bedroom window, as she had done so many times before Joyce found out about her Slaying. Willow had never been able to use the minuscule crevices in walls to her advantage.

But, now, she could make her own handholds. She could, after all, cut through anything. Making small holes in the outside wall to allow her to climb down should be child's play.

As indeed it was.

~*~

Riley wasn't talking to Buffy. This was something that she could live with, however. Sooner or later, he would realise that she had acted the way she had to save his life.

Still, it was kind of annoying. Who wouldn't want their lives saved, if they had the chance?

Buffy was brooding on this (not that she would ever admit to brooding. No, brooding was what Angel did. Not her, she was far too perky) in a graveyard (which was a good place to definitely-not-brood) when she spotted Martouf walking by.

Normally, if Buffy spotted a human walking around Sunnydale after dark, she would follow them and save them from the inevitable vampire attack. But Martouf had a symbiote, and was therefore more-or-less as strong as she was. He could probably handle a vampire attack.

On the other hand, Buffy was brooding. And, although she didn't really know Martouf, she could tell that something was bothering him. Given that this particular cemetery seemed devoid of newly-sired vamps, Buffy figured that it might be a good idea to find out what was bothering Martouf and see if she could do anything about it. And if it stopped her dwelling on Riley's incomprehensible decision not to be healed, then so much the better.

So Buffy called after him, and Martouf stopped and waited for her to catch up.

"What is it, Slayer?" Martouf said brusquely as he began walking again.

"It's Buffy, actually. The Vampire Slayer is just a title." Buffy corrected.

"Apologies. It is just that we have no records of one such as you, not even a legend. You must understand that the Tok'ra histories tell us that vampires were no more dangerous than any other race. There was no need for a Slayer."

"Yeah, and Goa'uld were just fluffy bunnies instead of megalomaniacs." Buffy grumbled. She knew the story, Jolinar had already told her. But Buffy found it impossible to reconcile the benevolent High Lord of the Goa'uld and the amorphous creature that had tried to kill her friends and wipe out his own race a year ago. Buffy was pretty sure that she was missing something, something that had led to vampires and Goa'uld alike becoming evil. She was also pretty sure that Caelus knew what it was, and if it wasn't for the fact that he was working to save Dawn's life (and by extension, the universe), Buffy would be trying to get him to tell her just what that was.

"Is there something I can do for you, Buffy?" Martouf asked, breaking Buffy's chain of thought.

Buffy found herself wondering how exactly you ask an alien you barely know what's on their mind. Buffy decided to gently try and worm it out of him-

"Is something bothering you? You seem... upset."

-or she could just blurt it out. That worked too.

For a while, Buffy didn't think he would answer. For a while, neither did Martouf. But, eventually, he spoke. He needed to speak, to say the words aloud, even if saying them hurt more than a Goa'uld pain stick.

"Jolinar's dead. She died, years ago. And now she's back, but she's still dead. After Caelus is done, she'll be reabsorbed by Sam. And she'll be gone. Again. She didn't think I'd figure it out, not before it was too late, but- I can't lose her again. I can't face that. Can you imagine what it's like, to lose someone you love, only to get them back, only to lose them again?"

Buffy could imagine. It was, after all, exactly what had happened between her and Angel. She'd sent him to hell, he'd come back and then left again. She'd moved past that now (mostly) but it still hurt. Back then, it had hurt far, far more, knowing that it was only a matter of time before he was gone for good.

But how much worse would it be if that happened with your partner of hundreds of years?

Martouf took her silence as her not being able to understand what he was going through. "But what do you know? You've got your insecure boyfriend who won't even tell you why he didn't want to be healed."

Buffy stopped walking. "You know why he didn't want to be healed, don't you?"

Martouf looked at her for several seconds before answering. "I held him while Selmak healed him, Buffy. He was strong. Stronger than he should've been. Try and imagine why he wouldn't want to give up that strength."

Buffy did, and she could only come up with one reason.

Because of her. Because Riley feared that, without that strength, he wouldn't be good enough. That was why he had been so keen on trying to make her understand that he was fine, that he was in fact better than he had ever been.

Buffy was going to need to have a conversation with him, about that. Just not right now.

Because, right now, Martouf needed to know that things were going to get better. That he would, eventually, get over Jolinar's death (as much as such things were ever possible). So Buffy told him about Angel, and to her vast surprise, found that she felt much better for doing so.

Martouf looked at her gravely when she finished, and then said "Thank you, Buffy. Thank you."

~*~

When Willow entered Caelus' lab, he was, for the first time, not doing anything with the equipment. Well, beyond absently toying with an empty test tube, because Caelus seemed absolutely incapable of sitting still.

Caelus looked up from the conversation he had been having with Jacob (no doubt Caelus was trying to catch up on all the galactic history he'd missed whilst he had been in prison) and asked "Have you seen Spike and Jolinar, by any chance?"

Willow felt a white-hot, irrational surge of anger. Damn. Apparently leaving without Jack had been a bad idea. Because, right now, Willow wanted to wipe Caelus off of the face the Earth.

Unfortunately, she actually had the power to do that, and the part of her that told her that killing Caelus was a bad idea was too small to make her pause. Willow could feel her control slipping away. Darkness swirled in front of her.

Caelus instantly stopped being the genial geneticist and became the imperious High Lord whose orders were to be obeyed without question. "Give me my scythe." Caelus said to Jacob, who found himself handing over the scythe before he even stopped to think. There was simply no possibility of disobeying that voice.

Caelus took the scythe and tossed it to Willow, who instinctively caught it. The part of her that was still capable of rational thought realised that the scythe barely weighed anything, and certainly didn't need someone of superhuman strength to carry it.

And then Willow pulled the power to obliterate Caelus and Jacob from existence. Only, this time, there was more power than before, more power than she could hold, more power than anyone could hold, an incredible source of absolute darkness...

Willow collapsed bonelessly to the floor, knocked unconscious by the sheer amount if power she had tried to wield.

Caelus pried his scythe from Willow's unconscious fingers and passed it back to Jacob, who asked "What just happened?"

"She tried to use too much power." Caelus replied, face held carefully blank so as to give nothing away.


	23. Chapter 23

Jacob didn't know the first thing about magic. Or vampires, come to think of it. Knowing that all this supernatural stuff had been happening on his own planet was almost beyond his ability to believe. And he was the host to a parasitic alien.

He knew that everyone was afraid of Willow, because she was apparently unstable, and if she died the universe would go with her. That, Jacob understood. It made sense, as much as any of this did.

Willow had quite clearly been on the verge of doing something when she'd come into the lab - whether she'd been on the brink of death or just about to unleash the corrosive blackness that destroyed everything it touched, Jacob couldn't tell.

But the fact was, if all it would take to stop Willow from dying (or from killing someone else) was that she draw too much power, then why had Caelus so imperiously demanded that Willow be given the scythe?

Jacob didn't understand how magic worked, or this Ancient power which seemed, to him, to be more or less the same thing. But he could follow cause and effect - Caelus had given Willow the scythe, and Willow had promptly drawn more power than she could use, and had been knocked unconscious.

Ergo, the power must have come from the scythe.

"What is this?" Jacob asked, raising the scythe gingerly.

"It's a scythe." Caelus said simply, carefully manoeuvring his way around Willow's prone body to continue his work. "And where are Spike and Jolinar? I need them for the next stage."

"It can't just be a scythe. Scythes don't turn into staffs. And they don't knock girls unconscious." Jacob said. Selmak had told him that Caelus never lied. He'd thought that was a good thing. But, apparently, it just meant that Caelus could quite truthfully call a scythe a scythe, when that clearly wasn't all it was.

"Do you know anything about magic?" Caelus enquired.

"No. Not a thing. I'd thought it was a myth until recently." Jacob admitted.

"I believe that the popular culture of this world generally depicts magic users with staffs or wands or other accoutrements of that kind. Is that correct?" Jacob nodded. "Have you ever wondered why?"

"Actually, no." Jacob said. "I can't say I ever devoted a great deal of time thinking about magic, even as a child. When I was young I always played at soldiers."

"Things like staffs, and even scythes, act as focusing instruments. They're purely cosmetic, of course, but many practioners find them helpful in directing their will in a certain direction. It provides focus. As such, someone might pull more power than they can use, because the object will focus that power to greater effect than they would get without it."

Okay, that actually made a little sense. Jacob thought that when given a list of things to count, running a finger down it made it easier to keep track. So, if focusing on something too hard could knock you out, then...

But no. There were loads of things in the room that could have done the job. Admittedly, most of them were test tubes and not nearly as impressive as a gigantic scythe, but still.

On the other hand, Caelus had shown a remarkable attachment to his scythe, to extent that he had literally broken down a door to get to it, and refused to work unless it was in sight. Maybe he'd chosen it instead of something else simply so he could have it in his hands.

Still, Jacob thought it would be for the best if he asked Caelus exactly what the scythe was. If Caelus had to tell the truth, then he couldn't avoid such a direct question.

"It's not just a scythe though, is it? Tell me what it really is." Jacob said with all the force that the General could muster.

Caelus sighed tiredly. "It's a scythe. It has always been a scythe, and it's still a scythe now. Admittedly, I can turn it into a staff, but it's still a scythe. Now, can you stop hassling me with irrelevant questions and go and find Spike and Jolinar? I need them to finish my work, and if I don't finish before Willow wakes up - well, let's just say that would be bad."

"No need." said Spike from the doorway cheerfully. Jolinar and Sam stood behind him. "We're here."

Spike and Sam stood considerably closer together than was strictly necessary. Jacob instantly surmised that something had happened between his daughter and the vampire, and promptly chose to ignore it (much to Selmak's amusement).

"Fantastic." said Caelus drily. "Now give me your blood. And before you ask me why, Major Carter, let me tell you that you wouldn't understand my answer."

Neither Spike nor Jolinar argued, although they all looked at Willow's unconscious body questioningly as the alien and the vampire drew their blood.

"It's a long story." Jacob said in response to their unasked question. "I'll tell you about it later."

"Yes yes, I'm sure you're all dying to chat, but could one of you fetch Colonel O'Neill? I'm nearly done here."

"I'll go." Jacob said, wanting to leave before he got into an argument with Sam about Spike.

"Is Will okay?" Sam asked.

"No." Caelus replied distractedly. "She isn't. If she wakes up, she'll either die, kill everyone in the room and then die, or something worse."

"What's worse than that?" Spike asked warily, moving as far from Willow as he could.

"You don't want to know."

"I do, actually. If I didn't, I wouldn't have asked."

Caelus sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Let me rephrase: I'm not going to tell you."

"Does it matter?" Jolinar asked. "I mean, you've finished now, haven't you? Can't you just inject her, or whatever it is that you're going to do?"

"I can. Unfortunately, I've had to make this with technology so primitive that I can't be sure whether it will work. And if it doesn't, I'd rather have O'Neill around because he might be able to buy a little time before Willow goes critical."

Spike snorted. "You're kidding me. You're betting the fate of the universe on a formula, and you don't even know if it'll _work_?"

"That's correct. However, I made it, and I am the best geneticist in the galaxy. If it can be done, I will do it." Caelus said.

"Bah. If the Ancients can give us the best geneticist in the galaxy, couldn't they have just sorted it out themselves?" Spike grumbled.

Caelus didn't answer. Spike was right. There was no reason for the Ancients to send anyone. They could have fixed everything before anyone even realised that there was a problem. Either that, or they could follow their standard policy and not interfere at all.

Caelus was a good politician. It's impossible to run a civilisation spread across the galaxy if you're not. But that didn't mean he liked it. He was a scientist at heart, he disliked the curly thinking and impenetrable motives that the true politicians so adored. He didn't know why they'd sent him, but it had to be to advance the machinations of one of the Ancients or another.

Fortunately, he was prevented from voicing his musings by the appearance of Jolinar, who had found Jack, Daniel and Dawn already on their way to the lab.

Caelus rapidly closed the distance between him and the colonel and injected him in the arm before he could protest. As he soon as he had done so, though, everyone with a weapons drew it. They were prepared for Caelus to try something.

"What did you do?" Jack said, gun pointed unwaveringly at Caelus' head.

"Try healing the pinprick. Go on. Try." Caelus encouraged, completely ignoring the gun.

After a moment, Jack lowered the gun and put a hand over his arm.

Nothing happened.

"It's not working." Jack said wonderingly. "You did it."

"I did." Caelus said in an incredibly self-satisfied tone. However, Spike wondered if he was the only one who noticed the tension that had suddenly left the Goa'uld.

Caelus carefully bent down to inject Willow too. As soon as he removed the needle, though, Spike reeled backwards. "What the hell is she?"

"Hey! That's my... friend you're talking about!" Daniel said indignantly.

Spike waved him away. "Yeah, we all know you've smooched her, but that ain't Willow. Humans don't smell like that. Nothing smells like that." Spike said, staring at the minute drop of blood that trickled from the puncture in Willow's skin. The blood which overwhelmed his vampiric senses with its overpowering smell.

It actually smelled delicious. Better than Slayer's blood.

Caelus absently drummed his fingers on a table. "I was afraid of that. I think that her Ancient power is turning on her, mutating her. The gene that my formula was engineered to eliminate isn't the same anymore, so I can't remove it."

Daniel turned to him. "You mean you knew this might happen? Why didn't you say anything?" he said in a dangerous voice.

Caelus shrugged. "I knew there was a possibility, yes. But seeing as how I can't do anything about it - not with the technology I have here - I didn't see why I should mention it."

Daniel put his head in his hands. "So we're doomed."

"Yes, you are." Willow stood up.

Or something that looked similar, at least. Her hair was no longer its normal coppery colour - it was several shades darker, and it seemed to darken before their very eyes. And her irises, normally a bright green, looked as though a dark film was covering them. That too was steadily darkening.

Willow raised a hand to wipe everyone in the room off of the face of the planet.

Dawn screamed.


	24. Chapter 24

"I suggest we run." said Caelus in a low voice.

"Seconded." Spike said quickly.

Daniel, however, didn't move. He was tired of this: tired of watching Willow suffer, tired of not being able to do anything, tired of hoping she would be alright. She wasn't. She was standing in front of him, and she wanted to kill him.

If Willow had lost it, then Daniel doubted that anyone would get far, even if they ran. Which meant that he, Jack, Sam, Dawn and Jolinar were all going to die, and their deaths would trigger the end of the universe.

So, it was Daniel's last moments before the apocalypse. He wasn't going to spend them running.

After Spike had blown up Adam, he and Willow had talked a little about their relationship. They'd both agreed that their kiss had meant something, and then not done anything about it. Daniel didn't know it, but Jack had a pool going about when exactly he and Willow would start dating.

Still, Daniel wasn't going to die without kissing her again. Even if she killed him for it, which seemed a pretty likely possibility.

So he did.

Willow, who had begun raising her hands to blast everything in front of her into oblivion, froze. The all-consuming desire to cause as much destruction as she could was supplanted by the sensation of Daniel's lips on hers.

Deep inside her, some remnant of the old Willow, the one without the mood swings and instability, burst into life. She didn't want to kill her friends.

On the other hand, she could no more restrain the darkness welling up inside her than Canute could stop the tides.

The darkness obviously had to go somewhere. It just as obviously couldn't go anywhere, not if Willow didn't want to kill anyone.

So, instead of releasing it, Willow turned it inwards, turned it on her herself.

She could feel it scouring through her veins, burning hotter than the sun. Still, Willow struggling onwards, forcing deeper.

Then she found it. The gene that was causing all these problems. The gene that would either kill her or her friends. The gene that had mutated, ever so slightly, so that Caelus hadn't been able to eradicate it.

But she could. Willow could destroy anything. So she did.

She collapsed bonelessly, panting, against Daniel's chest. Daniel, surprised that he was still alive, cradled the back of her head and held her to him. He wasn't sure what had happened, but he wasn't going to let go.

He didn't even move when Spike cleared his throat diffidently behind him and asked "Uh, what just happened?"

"Daniel gave Willow a great big kiss and fixed everything. You know, like a fairy tale." Dawn said excitedly.

Spike looked at her for a long moment before saying "You know, I forgot that you're about twelve."

"Hey! I'm fourteen!" Dawn corrected indignantly.

"It doesn't matter." Caelus interjected. "The darkness has gone from her. She is cured. Which means that all that's left is to reverse the effect of the Ferula."

"Ah." said Jolinar softly, looking down at her feet.

"I guess we'd better head to Giles' so he can do his ritual, then." Sam said, looking at her doppelgänger uncomfortably.

~*~

It was dark by the time the group left the lab (it had taken Caelus a while to make sure that none of his work was salvageable). While normally wandering around Sunnydale at night was tantamount to suicide, they were a fairly large group with several trained fighters. It was unlikely that vampires or demons would be able to cause them much trouble.

Giant insects from another dimension were a different matter, however. Especially when it burst from right underneath the group's feet and knocked most of them flying. Only Dawn and Caelus, who were walking more slowly in order to accommodate the Goa'uld slower pace, were spared.

Dawn's instinctive reaction when faced with a giant insect was too run away from it as fast as she possibly could. She could hear her friends getting back on their feet behind her, but she just wanted to leave the insect far behind her. She hated bugs.

Running away would, under normal circumstances, have been a good idea. Unfortunately, this particular insect had been driven a little crazy from its time in this dimension, and correctly assumed that it was Dawn's fault that it was stuck here.

So it ran after her. And as fast as Dawn was, the giant insect was faster. She could hear its feet clattering in the pavement as it caught up to her.

Just as she was certain that the bug was going to crash into her, Dawn suddenly felt herself being pushed hard in the side. She went sprawling sideways, and managed to catch a glimpse of Caelus standing where she'd been standing just a moment before.

That is, before the insect crashed into him and knocked him flying.

Dawn lay where she'd fallen for several long seconds, before the insect burrowed underground and vanished. Then she groggily got to her feet and limped over to Caelus as fast as she could.

He wasn't moving. His eyes were closed. If he was breathing, she couldn't tell. Dawn didn't know what to do. She could bandage wounds (she lived with a Slayer, so she needed at least rudimentary first aid skills) but what could she do to help an alien? She didn't even know if he had a pulse, or where to find it.

She was saved from doing something stupid by Caelus opening his eyes. It took a few seconds, but eventually he managed to focus on her.

The only thing Dawn could think to say was "Are you okay?" which just sounded incredibly banal.

Fortunately for her, the mundanity of her question was put out of her mind by Caelus' answer. Unfortunately, the answer was "Actually, no. I'm dying." The wheezing voice he spoke in and the pain evident in every word did nothing to reassure her.

"What? No! You're - you can't die!" Dawn said frantically.

Caelus tried to force himself up, and failed. "Actually... I can. The impact... crushed my Goa'uld. Toxin. Dying. Where's my scythe?"

"I'll get it." Dawn said, standing up. She just knew that, if she got his scythe, Caelus would be fine.

He had to be, right?

However, when Dawn headed over to her friends, she realised that they hadn't caught up with her. They were just standing down at the other end of the street, not moving. At all. And the insect, which just moments before had been intent on crushing her underfoot, hadn't re-emerged.

Dawn turned back to Caelus to ask him what was going on, but her train of thought was derailed when she saw that she was already standing next to him.

Except it wasn't her. The person by Caelus looked exactly like Dawn would look if she was about twenty years older.

"Arcturus... I presume? Excuse me if I don't get up." Caelus wheezed.

"_Ave_, Ori." Arcturus said in greeting. The Ancient raised a hand, and Caelus was suddenly bathed in red light. After a moment, it winked out. When it did, Caelus got to his feet with no difficulty.

"Hello, daughter." Arcturus said to Dawn.

"Uh... hello." Dawn answered shyly. What could you possibly say to the person who had created you, over ten thousand years ago?

"You froze them in time." Caelus said, gesturing to the Scoobies. "That's my trick."

Caelus' scythe appeared in Arcturus' hand in a flash of red light. "It's not just yours, Ori." Arcturus said coldly.

Caelus didn't say anything, merely extended a hand for the scythe. After a moment, Arcturus handed it to him.

"I'm sorry about all of this, daughter. This incident with the Ferula Gemina was outside my control. Believe me, I didn't want to put you in danger." Arcturus said softly.

"Yeah, well, not enough to come descend and actually do anything." Dawn said, before she could stop herself. Then again, she'd only recently found out that she wasn't human. She had a good excuse to be a little snotty.

"It was not my idea to send Ori here. If it was up to me, I would never have involved him in the first place." Arcturus said.

Caelus rolled his eyes. "If you want to dredge up history that was done long before you were born, go ahead. I do not care one whit for your opinion."

"It doesn't matter what I think, Ori." Arcturus snapped. "But the Alterrans decided that this would be a test for you, to see if you had truly given up your old ways."

Caelus eyes flared, but otherwise he gave no response.

"They seem to think that you have. So I am here to help you ascend."

"I do not need your help. In any case, I must first deal with the Ferula. It is Ancient technology, after all."

Arcturus nodded, once. "Very well." she raised a hand, but Dawn interrupted before the Ancient could do anything.

"Wait! What about my friends? And the bug thing?"

"Your friends will not remember anything untoward happening after leaving the laboratory. And the insect has already been returned to its home."

"And, uh, if you're sticking around until after Giles reverses the Ferula, would you mind being invisible?"

"Dawn hasn't told anyone what she is, yet." Caelus explained.

"As you wish." Arcturus said, although it was clear that she didn't like the idea.

~*~

Arcturus transported Dawn, Caelus and the rest of the Scoobies and SG-1 to Giles' house in a burst of red light.

Caelus stayed while Giles reversed the Ferula Gemina's effects. He stayed and watched Buffy comfort Martouf. He stayed and watched Jacob take Spike and Sam aside and tell them that he was happy as long as she was. He watched Daniel and Willow sit together companionably, without talking. He stayed and smoked a cigarette, much to everyone but Spike's disapproval.

Eventually, he took the Ferula in his hands, and pressed his fingers against it in some pattern. He blurred for a moment, and then the Ferula vanished. A moment later, so did he.

Dawn heard his voice in her ear as he ascended.

"_Aveo, amacuse._"


End file.
